Anoush Anou

Received not Taken

Every mirror is a rumor about the face you carry
your breath fogging it just enough
to write a name I don’t quite finish.
What’s left is always what is leaving:
stillness, laughter, a warm dent in the chair.
You live inside the fall between heartbeats,
paper crumpling randomly as it learns your shape,
then doesn’t. So, I wave to some of your possible selves
who might look back at me as well.

• Portrait