#tanka

by Takuboku Ishikawa tr. Roger Pulvers

There’s something quietly revealing about the way the morning light slices this picture in two, spilling across the bed and draping the bottom half of me in pure, golden warmth while the rest stays folded in gentle shade. Lying back, bare but for the touch of sunshine, I catch myself in the lens just as I am — thoughtful, unguarded, my face set in that familiar mix of pondering and slightly reserved. I recognise that version of me. It's one of my favourite Lady Bee captures, not for anything risqué, but because it’s unflinchingly honest; a half-lit confession that the world rarely gets to see. The sunshine finds the bits of me usually hidden under trousers and panties (and it's one of those occasions where my pubic hair is almost shaved bare, which I find a little shocking), while the shade offers some sort of thin veil, albeit a nipple escaping. There’s the gentle hum of the washing machine in the next room, the faint tang of lemon polish from yesterday’s half-hearted dusting, and the soft creak of the mattress as I shift my legs, sun-warmed and free in a way that’s usually reserved for dreams or quiet morning reveries.

Half in Shadow, Half in Bloom

Between sun and shade

skin remembers unspoken

truths — soft, unshelled, bright.

Daylight sketches my secrets:

bold, blooming, not yet revealed.

Lady Bee

Even with no one watching

Beauty unobserved

And you'll be just as lovely

Incorporeal Electromagnetic fields What am I, really? This surge between my atoms She just told me she loved me

Obscurity, moaning low

A trembling yawn

The diamonds in the darkness