Letters never meaning
to send, I make your
marbled paper, ebru,
Turkish word for cloud

Marbled paper, 'security
paper' to prevent illicit
change in your passionate
text

16th century, you my love 
are the art of marbling, a
decorative insert, Album Amicorum,
Prague, bookbinding material

Marbling, depositing colors upon
your watery surface made thick
through starchy, gum tragacanth,
I mix ox gall, making your paper

Letters never meaning to send
causing the marbled white satin
to expand into thin films that keeps
us from commingling with one another

Making your paper, I finish your
pattern with my finger after which
a sheet of paper is laid on you to
absorb the Turkish pattern

hatip-ebrusu, flower pattern named
after Mehmet Efendi, marbler and
preacher hatip in the Aya Sophia
mosque

I bring half of the sheet down over
you and you are subjected to
pressure as I brush you with egg
whites and polish your white satin

to give it a washed appearance ... do
you know how much I adore passionate
calligraphy?  Making your paper: Nights
in White Satin ... Letters never meaning
to send ...

Copyright 2006 Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist~