Doug Roy, Long Fish, Cut Paper
A mirror reflects a mirror
i touch you with fear like an ear to a talking shell
and much afraid that you will crumble
like a prince in his sand palace
and when you fall apart i think about what killed you
aids suicide loneliness or just that you were
never beyond my dreams and imagination
the news reported about a transgender refugee
who hanged himself with a jump rope in a communal shower
and then i realized that i don’t give a damn about him just
like everyone else doesn’t give a damn about me
this spiral of loneliness reflected in each other will be eternal
in an attempt to interrupt this mirror game
i write to a guy from tinder he sends me a message
where he writes that he wants sex
i delete tinder and close the tab with the news feed
the shell by my ear becomes a shell again
this shell doesn’t want to talk to me anymore
i’m pretending again that i don’t need anyone
my leg is starting to show signs of childhood
from being hit with a jump rope
________________
Mykyta Ryzhykh
Review by Massimiliano Nastri
I am not sure I should be writing this review because I found it the closeness between content and tone not confessional but too straightforward, not enough ambiguity as in Brown Preston. And yet, and yet, the images had a power that led me to read them aloud. I realized I have a problem with the telling of the story because it was like eavesdropping or listening in a therapy session, where, the longer one is listening, the more one is pulled in and transfers not with the therapist but the patient. The mirror reflecting a mirror and suddenly not returning anymore one’s reflection, just like the shell going mute are powerful metaphors, whatever the actual physics of parallel surfaces.