Francis Luo
Self-Portrait As Young Love
for K.N.
In December, my friend offered to murder me
in the Sierra Nevada, and I accepted. We drove
up crumbling mountain roads until snow fell
off of trees and out of clouds: melting clumps
setting the stage for next year's ruthless road
erosion. The pine needles spoke cold silence.
In a darkened snowy clearing, we set off fire
-works that gleamed like stars in the blank
night, then went supernova. Ooh and ah.
The anxious sun rose, standing over snow
marred by black remnant ash that we ref-
used to clean up. I sent an ecstatic laugh
or cry into the sky like a flare, luminant
as it danced through the uncertain gray
pallor, and had to be symbolic of some
thing. Later, twig-thin rivulets of red
seeped into crystal white, spurting
forth from cold hands above snow
above soil where an earthworm
could fertilize growths of green
or flowers the following spring.
My friend drove back down to
the Bay alone.
Optometry
"Your vision is like mine," says the optometrist
in his cream-white microfiber voice. Clanky
machines, pretentious whirring lenses, are waiting
silently in the corner of the room to be used. "Myopia,"
says the optometrist, "which is just nearsightedness.
Did you know that's what it's called?" An answer tumbles
like a pancake out of my mouth, and he cuts me off.
"Are you applying to schools this year?" asks the optometrist,
and I tell him I will be next year, and he says nothing.
The lenses cast their ocular magic over my eyes.
Click, whir, clear, blur.
"Do you wear your glasses while driving?" asks the optometrist,
and I tell him no, I don't drive, and he tells me I'll need
to bring them to my driving test. On the monitor across the room,
my eyes perceive crisp sans serif letters as the vague
orangey purple proportions of clouds at dusk, streaming gloriously
past the windshield during my crepuscular car ride
in the passenger seat, and I tell the optometrist, I still see
the retreating figure
of the setting sun.
Francis Luo is a writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area who has recently been published in Echo Literary Magazine, the Incandescent Review, and Crashtest Magazine. He's constantly surprised to learn that he writes more poetry than he thinks he does.
