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.