By Noralee Zwick
& so we went out hunting, your camcorder thrown over your left
shoulder as a mist net, & I followed behind you, unspooling it all.
We were always running those days. our steps were made
of light, & the light bent under itself. I thought often
about reflections, back then, but only those in rivers & sometimes
mirages. I had those, repeating, too. In philosophy class (you took this,
I never did), you learned that mirages only bloom in certain places.
the desert, as water; open arms, as salvation. When we hunt, I
see them everywhere. You pass each one by. your camera flash
gorges your trailing path & you don’t notice a thing. You say
you’ve got a lack of it. by IT — beliefs, reflections. awareness —
so dramatic, I said, so you’d add dramatics to the list. Colors.
A songbird humming its path through the trees. The maples,
cerulean-bright. a color! you’d say, so I’d shoot my hands out.
The bluebird blurring its way through my palms. Your right eye
closes; you filter your fingertips into photographs. the maples loom.
THERE. Wasn’t I enough, wasn’t I. in these vignettes I believe
in movement. Philosophy says this is a mirage too—a snapshot
my mind eye produces simply because it wants something
to be there. There were infinities, believe me, infinities. perhaps
it was us, reflecting cornflower blue in your camera lens;
we were there & then gone. Come over. Fill in the blanks.
in the polaroid you take of me, I am blurry. the film
refuses to sit right & in your path I am ever so little —
a blueblur, with wings — a pool of water philosophy says
exists simply — & what I mean is this — I have held the mirage.
Noralee Zwick is a student and poet based in the Bay Area, California. A California Arts Scholar and Iowa Young Writers Studio alum, their work can be found in Corvus Magazine, Prairie Home Magazine, and Dishsoap Quarterly, among others. Find them on Instagram at @noraleewrites
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