The Magician’s Girl
from “The Carnival”
The night is our carnival.
I recognize your practiced hands,
your kind of breed,
the way fear is
intoxicating to you.
You imagine me levitating,
locked in your glass box,
my skin glittering.
You’ve brought me here
to test my reflexes.
We stand on the ledge
of a high-rise,
cars swarm the streets below
like toys on a circuit.
I don’t tremble.
The sky is our stage, we take our places in this balancing act,
you exhibit me to the night,
I’m unwrapped under neon.
Voyeur lights wink at us,
we hang on, bracing each other
for the plummet.
Alexis Marie earned her Master’s in Creative Writing from Oxford University in 2011. Her poetry has been published in a variety of journals and anthologies including The Oxonian Review, Asia Literary Review, Vallum, and Poetry is Dead. She lives and writes in Vancouver, Canada.
To view other poems published in this issue please visit Vallum’s website.
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Vallum: Contemporary Poetry 