Abracadabra
By Yuxi Lin
My mother holds the wriggling mouse
in her gloved hand
thumb poised above its vertebrae
My father in his white coat behind her
whispers the right places to break
She shakes her head—No, no
Mercy is the small name
we give an animal not ourselves
I knew she had it in her, my mother
holding me all those years ago
in the chair as my father cut my hair—
So you don’t look like a girl
Against the back of my skull
he made a fist & pulled
Like a magician & his assistant
they did the act together—Transformation
Dismemberment & Shove Her in a Hat!
The girl vanished under the black scrim
& a boy was lifted by the neck
That cowlick—
it was the only thing wild about me
In my twenties I grew my hair out
& slathered perm salt to break
the disulfide bonds
I stroked my curls, each strand
a helix hissing secrets
I thought if I looked foreign enough
no one could claim me
not even shame
which, as all things
must grow from the root
