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.