Keyi Wang

Staring Contest

Movie scene: blurry-edged visage, green
KieΕ›lowski lights, air conditioning’s soft
murmurs, six empty seats on the still

unoccupied sand. A pair of irises, subtle
as the fall of a cashmere camisole. Trick or
more tricks, color blindness as a concept –

the shortening asteroid belts, this
recurring line of code, one
more word used too figuratively;

it triggered you. No, you β‰  “you,”
someone clasped their hands &
buried the flickering candle in

an occluded night undeserving
of moonshine. We kept waiting for
a sacred epiphany, sharp turns on highways:

rotting countenance, molding features,
unmeasurable beta decay. Morning
nothings, caffeinated cologne –

for the duration of this stare, I am
staring at you, staring back, with all
my unknown unknowns, all I can stare with,

which, really, isn’t much.

About the Author

Keyi Wang is a young poet from Shenzhen, China, and will spend her next four years writing and bagel-tasting at Princeton University. She has published three poetry chapbooks, and her poems have been published by various online literary journals. She was born to light metaphorical fires but finds herself forced to succumb to the passage of time.