Refracted

by Addie Tsai

I slept to a monotonous record, a seasonless circle
looping my body into a string of invisible coils.

I counted time, measured the sun
as it wore my face into poses.

The slit of my eyes sliced the light in half.
The fan whirred a layer of ash over our taut, fragmented bodies.

When I grew afraid of you, your fingercurl
grazing the bones beneath my cheek,

I cast my lying body out on a line,
drew it further and further away.

Look, there it is,
bobbing above the waters of a black hole.

When you grew afraid of me, I taunted you,
the half-circle of my back carving out a refusal.

I hated this game of inhabited space,
convinced I was innocent of involvement

until at last I caught myself in the mirror,
body unafraid, casting an empty reflection.

Next to me, a car rotated in a circle of water.
I stacked one tight vertebra over another,

railroad ties for sale
in an abandoned junkyard.

*Photo courtesy Jenny Spadafora.