SurVision Magazine

Sitting on the Brass Bed Before the Dance


I fear I was born a thimble, 3/4 acquiescent yet wholly courageous. Dressed in tin and thorned for buttons' sake. Stuck by a needle's song through linen during the 6 o'clock news hour. I'd rather have come a bare pointer finger, slightly bunioned with a left-ward shudder. Extended utterly towards the storm that bears spores, notions and other far-aways to drench all beings willed a skin. Not me. I'm nothing but a dresser drawer, fully yielding to slams and secret-keeps. Lined in velveteen and residual DNA. You know how combs are passed around birthday parties. If only I could be the mirror, to meet with candor those who stand before me in need of analysis. A ruling on a waistline. A solution for lying eyes. A wink before a first date. But none of this "you'd even look great in a burlap sack" nonsense. To hold in my reflection the constellation light through the window and render the room phosphorescent, an unabashed assault on others' sleep and my own diffidence. Only then could I ask him to dance.






Magdalyn Gould is from Rockaway, New York .  Her poems have been published in Newton Literary.  She is poetry editor for Brine Literary. In 2015, she won the Hoyt Jacobs Prize in Poetry.