I Say, it’s 7 am in the Mirror “She Says? No, I Say” Wenshu Wang, 2019

by Jesús M. Maldonado Treviño

The wall is ivory, overcast

by the sun slipping in from the window.

Were Li Jie’s shadow

smaller, the room

would be brighter, a ringing bell.

I once stood

in the river. It’s rushing outside

under a fog. There was a shard

of glass between the pebbles. Is it

still there? When I stood in the water

I’d taken off the white dress.

My friend

kept hers on and she studied my

flesh—the fat falling over my hip,

beside my wrist, wearing at my waist

—and reached down to the river. Her

feet were bruised in blue and mine were pooled

in garnet red. On the riverbank, there was

a lone magnolia flower as white

as my clothes. My fingers dug into the slit

in the sole of my foot. I barely tugged

at the glass pinching my tendon.

She dug in too. The cut remained when we

started binding our feet. He’s walking

over. He peers at himself in the mirror.

He brushes my cheek with his torrid thumb.