Rubin’s Vase

Published in The Dos Passos Review (December 2013)

Each in turn,
we stood still as deer in the murderous lights,
held our breath and braced against the beating of our hearts.

Posed left, or right—mug shot style,
one among us assigned to cast the shadow
while Mrs. Leland traced us,

and there against the wall
we each emerged,
point of chin, round of lips, tip of nose,

even eyelashes, she was so careful.
Giving us first glimpse
into the sideways mirror.

Then, slowly, slowly
I cut myself out,
scissors crunching through construction paper.

First, a simple curved line,
around the top of my head
before daring to try the scallop of my lips.

When it is done, there I am.
Profile, black on an oval white,
and a new word, “cameo,”

I bring home in my mouth,
a slow-melting licorice black on my tongue
to add to my collection of not-dolls,

fat journal lines my shelves,
and set it down under “c,”
next to calibrate and coincidence

and cunt, which I had decided to include
because I did learn it at school that year
when it crackled through the playground on a wave of sixth grade male electricity.

II.

Your reaction was not what I expected.
You got busy with your own project,
gathering paper and pencil and marker,
tracing my profile—the cameo your stencil,
filling me in, black marker squeaking,
flipping the paper-me to the other side,
tracing me again.

I watched
leaning toward you,
for the first time imagining
how I might look to someone else,
me facing you,
and shifted, ever so slightly,
the angle of my chin.

When it is done, there I am, twice.
Me facing me.
Me looking at me.
Me almost kissing me.
“Rubin’s Vase,” you said,
and gave me “optical illusion”
for my word collection.

But as hard as I tried,
I could not see the vase.
For days and from all angles I stared,
growing sick of the pucker of my lips,
hating the tiny check mark of lashes that marked
my eye, wide open, staring at my eye.
Me looking at me, all I could see.

III.

It is while clearing out your house
I find them both,
the cameo and
your variation on that theme,
stored like pressed flowers in a bottom drawer.

But now, in the afternoon light, all I see is the vase,
the years of vases
huddled together in my dark cupboard.
Strangers on a crowded elevator
smelling faintly of fetid water.

And all I want in this moment is
not to see the vase,
the urn of your ashes.
Instead see me
seeing me.