This room made lovely by shadow
This room with bulbs that move above like passing streetlights, dark, but speckled in the city, home is drunk and watching you drive.
In this room, submerged in water is my body made of glass, near invisible, but you can see the scar like pursed lips from a sharp corner, it is found through touch.
In this room the sun cannot heal me. It is mild like a tepid-tonged ocean. Fathomless to meaningless as a bird call recedes in three parts sectioned like an echo.
In this room you can sit in a nest made of ice and blue glass. It glitters in the structured sunlight and melts to hold you tight ‘till the shards ease in to your thighs.
In this room I am sleeping. The ceiling fan clicks and the air conditioning clicks and the window blinds click against a window, all like thin things breaking.
In this room I haven’t bothered.
This room with two pleated cities making music with the seashore sound of passing cars.
In this room I have written your name repeatedly until it became one shape like a lose shadow of ash and then I switched to a different color.
This room, made lovely by shadows, is empty as intended.
In this room, with the drill pulse familiar, we are pinned in motion by strobing lights, can you see me laughing in green?
This room where we will never touch for the glass again between us, there is a flower held here in the sheer surface, pink without motion, to remind you.
In this room without memory we have a moment so I can apologize.
Retained
He lives in her mirror, per their agreement, and watches her. She is not performative, neither of them wanted that, but she is beautiful and thus easy to watch. He watches her braid her hair, her round chin angled down, and looks to see if she is frowning slightly, if she is tired. He watches her floss, infrequently, and watches her examine her blemishes from a short distance away. He enjoys this because, when she is near him, her breath dews the mirror. When she is gone for long hours of the day, he does not need to watch anything, but when she is home, in a T-shirt maybe, listening to music, often, perhaps sweeping in a way that is almost a slow dance and humming to herself, it is important that she is watched. She forgets sometimes, and then remembers, and she will smile at him because, she knows, he is there. He watches her remember, and he watches her forget. Every moment retained.
Things that I have sacrificed to give you body
Money: a sum of no interest.
A collection of iridescent birds who sing like rusted swing sets.
A parking lot on Sunday where church bells pool like a slow-moving mist.
An apartment with six potted plants, blue-grey walls, this place that grew to smell of garlic, leeks, wine.
Sunlight and sex, both so blinding that I leave myself.
Men who felt ready to love me, in parts.
A bruise, plum-shape and color.
A slew of road-side peach stands dappled in both real and fronted love of country.
The phantom of you in a hall mirror with a face that I could shape with needs my own.
This room with bulbs that move above like passing streetlights, dark, but speckled in the city, home is drunk and watching you drive.
In this room, submerged in water is my body made of glass, near invisible, but you can see the scar like pursed lips from a sharp corner, it is found through touch.
In this room the sun cannot heal me. It is mild like a tepid-tonged ocean. Fathomless to meaningless as a bird call recedes in three parts sectioned like an echo.
In this room you can sit in a nest made of ice and blue glass. It glitters in the structured sunlight and melts to hold you tight ‘till the shards ease in to your thighs.
In this room I am sleeping. The ceiling fan clicks and the air conditioning clicks and the window blinds click against a window, all like thin things breaking.
In this room I haven’t bothered.
This room with two pleated cities making music with the seashore sound of passing cars.
In this room I have written your name repeatedly until it became one shape like a lose shadow of ash and then I switched to a different color.
This room, made lovely by shadows, is empty as intended.
In this room, with the drill pulse familiar, we are pinned in motion by strobing lights, can you see me laughing in green?
This room where we will never touch for the glass again between us, there is a flower held here in the sheer surface, pink without motion, to remind you.
In this room without memory we have a moment so I can apologize.
Retained
He lives in her mirror, per their agreement, and watches her. She is not performative, neither of them wanted that, but she is beautiful and thus easy to watch. He watches her braid her hair, her round chin angled down, and looks to see if she is frowning slightly, if she is tired. He watches her floss, infrequently, and watches her examine her blemishes from a short distance away. He enjoys this because, when she is near him, her breath dews the mirror. When she is gone for long hours of the day, he does not need to watch anything, but when she is home, in a T-shirt maybe, listening to music, often, perhaps sweeping in a way that is almost a slow dance and humming to herself, it is important that she is watched. She forgets sometimes, and then remembers, and she will smile at him because, she knows, he is there. He watches her remember, and he watches her forget. Every moment retained.
Things that I have sacrificed to give you body
Money: a sum of no interest.
A collection of iridescent birds who sing like rusted swing sets.
A parking lot on Sunday where church bells pool like a slow-moving mist.
An apartment with six potted plants, blue-grey walls, this place that grew to smell of garlic, leeks, wine.
Sunlight and sex, both so blinding that I leave myself.
Men who felt ready to love me, in parts.
A bruise, plum-shape and color.
A slew of road-side peach stands dappled in both real and fronted love of country.
The phantom of you in a hall mirror with a face that I could shape with needs my own.
Arlyn LaBelle is a poet and flash fiction writer living in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared multiple times in the Badgerdog summer anthologies as well as The Blue Hour, LAROLA, JONAH Magazine, The Oddville Press, Songs of Eretz, Grey Sparrow Press, Cease, Cows and The Southern Poetry Review.
