Amy Lerman | Autostereogram
While my hair rests in the shampoo bowl,
I stare again at water stains on the ceiling
tile, feeling like something has to materialize
out of the surrounding black spots that layer
and rise, clouding, distorting, shattering pupils
equally as dark, prey for a Magic Eye painting
so popular decades ago, when will the surprise
shark appear? Maybe I can light a match,
cue the Mission Impossible theme music, just
propel myself, feet first smashing through
the mosaic, knees bending my upside down
torso, so I swing on my elementary school
jungle gym again, forget clumps of cut locks,
blow dryers’ noise below, no one seems
to notice my acrobatics or exit, a new floor
stain courtesy of my hair’s wet drops. Let me
refold, my head fitting nicely where I holed,
neighboring tiles’ fine fissures agglutinating
with my body in full pixilation, patterning
new, perhaps a vintage silhouette cut from
black construction paper, no eyes or teeth
visible, framed on a childhood wall.
I stare again at water stains on the ceiling
tile, feeling like something has to materialize
out of the surrounding black spots that layer
and rise, clouding, distorting, shattering pupils
equally as dark, prey for a Magic Eye painting
so popular decades ago, when will the surprise
shark appear? Maybe I can light a match,
cue the Mission Impossible theme music, just
propel myself, feet first smashing through
the mosaic, knees bending my upside down
torso, so I swing on my elementary school
jungle gym again, forget clumps of cut locks,
blow dryers’ noise below, no one seems
to notice my acrobatics or exit, a new floor
stain courtesy of my hair’s wet drops. Let me
refold, my head fitting nicely where I holed,
neighboring tiles’ fine fissures agglutinating
with my body in full pixilation, patterning
new, perhaps a vintage silhouette cut from
black construction paper, no eyes or teeth
visible, framed on a childhood wall.
Amy Lerman lives in Arizona where she is residential English Faculty at Mesa Community College. A Pushcart nominee, her chapbook, Orbital Debris, won the Jonathan Holden Poetry Chapbook Contest, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Slippery Elm, Passengers, Atticus Review, Radar Poetry, Rattle, Smartish Pace, and elsewhere.
Nuala McEvoy is an English/Irish artist and writer currently living between Germany and Spain. Nuala paints places she has visited using her memory and her imagination. Nuala has had two exhibitions in Münster, Germany, and is currently preparing an exhibition in London.
nualamcevoy | Instagram | Linktree
x @mcevoy_nuala
nualamcevoy | Instagram | Linktree
x @mcevoy_nuala