Optical Illusion
They still don’t believe what they see,
wonder where the mirrors are set up
to cleave off half my frame, fraction figure,
my fractured image losing mass as the crowd
loses the ability to suspend disbelief. The magic
gets old faster than I ever will. The amusement
fizzles to pity. Circling eyes see only a great
constellation of shame floating above my neck,
peer down the well of my severed throat, xray
my soul, come to some conclusion. I am
spitting out raw oxygen, the words never catch
in the flow of it, my perspective lost in the plummet
beyond tightrope vocal chords, dancing miles up.
I’ll be a circus of dead flesh, tricks of the light,
and if you angle everything precisely as I stand
in the middle of this funhouse, caught between jaws
closing mirror hinges, the reflection will bounce images
of endlessness, and in the center of this downwards spiral
I’ll disappear entirely.
2 thoughts on "Optical Illusion"
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Beautifully raw and skillful. I stole a mantra from another poet today, “leaf, river, sky” tear us away from the mirrors and their disappearing tricks.
Keep writing, keep sharing, keeping being whole, Sophie.
Fierce and urgent, precision writing–so smart and present. I really admire the last 6 lines especially.