Asymmetry Study/Aubade with Seashells


Sarkis Antonyan
BFA INTAR 2027


Asymmetry Study


Branches dangle their spines low

                                                               they consume too much of the Sun.
                                                                                     I obscure

                my true face from them
                                                                              flee behind mist

                                              count which droplets give me away. I’ve cheated

being human before

                               drop dull razor
blades in too-thin trash liners give
                                                              my mother a papercut

                forget the sorry.

                                               When shutters dissever morning

its light jamming my collarbones
                                                                              so bitterly I coil

               inside the carpet boundary
                               a gutter-clung leaf

                                                                              scouring breeze-

slackened concrete

                                ground draped
                                                too much ill-

                shaped exposure.

                                                               I shave my friend’s head

he wanted a fresh start
                took too much delight in the telescope
                                               its brutal render. In the morning I

                make eggs
                                to break something. Left
                                                               the shoreline nothing shiny

homecoming of mangled
                                beer bottles mistook for seashells. What gag

                wade through the day fear
the ruin

                                              holding the butterknife
                                                             too loosely over the Jif jar.

              I get home
                              push fingers out of holes

                                                             rips in the glove willful
                                              let them sag

fall void in the rubber.

Aubade with Seashells


                      after Sarah Lao

How I dangle from the pillowcase,
your gift of shells startling my palm.

Beyond—hawks wrangling cords
of lightning from the horizon. How

I forget the way your tongue lapped
into mine, how we twisted from men

shrieking out their slurs, darting into
margins. Serpentine nights on campus

where asphalt purled amid our ankles.
Every interior knew to pocket their

echoes. Even they didn’t know
an end. These scraggles of calcium

strain sick to solder into your features.
The contour drawing of your mouth

as devastating as an attic mid-
blaze. Forgive me for wanting

a lover projected across American
plainland. My walls are graffitied

with slinks of fingerprint oil.
Miles away, you are also rubbing

the crust from your eyes.
The morning is a cruel whisper.


Sarkis Antonyan is hiding a mini Kit Kat in his jacket pocket.






Mark