black swan
It’s been twenty years
and you still
want to cover up the
canvas.
During the first time in
heels,
you puffed your chest out
for emphasis.
As the usual, people
stared
at the mother and her
daughter’s growing behind,
marks of chocolate
plumage.
A strut here, a strut
there.
And it was almost the
routine again:
play with the palette,
give up your unruly,
slap on the rules.
Between drugstore aisles,
stilettos clanged
against every inch.
I wondered: Couldn’t a
duckling enjoy her color quietly?
You stopped short when I
cupped the nail polish.
It would pull the shroud
back
from your face and
toward your hands again.
But it’s black, you cried. Black!
You grabbed
the foundation, too light
for your
cheek.
You held
onto the sick powder.
I forced
your hands to your side.
Your eyes
stilled onto the sleeve of your sweater.
The smell
of Mercurochrome
hunted you
on the way out,
through
twenty years, til today,
the way
everyone hunted dark birds
with their
eyes
until they
flew no more.
* * *
Erica Guo has worked on the staffs of Blueshift Journal and Transcendence Magazine, and co-founded Cenzontle Magazine: http://cenzontleliterarymagazine.virb.com/
* * *
Erica Guo has worked on the staffs of Blueshift Journal and Transcendence Magazine, and co-founded Cenzontle Magazine: http://cenzontleliterarymagazine.virb.com/
* * *
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