Swatch Test

Close one eye. Look
at the paint chip, then the wall;

paint chip, then wall. If you tick
back and forth quick enough,

the shade will cast an after-image,
your own eye speckling

the space you want to change.
I keep shaving my upper lip

even though it’s hidden under
a mask, even though it will be

as far as I can imagine a future.
Close one eye. What would it take

to take in what you’re repulsed by?
If I let the shadow grow back. Shade lingers

like the sulfur a matchstick leaves
when it’s shaken out. Tick back and forth —

You can choose what you want to be ashamed of —
back and forth across the wish.

with a line from Corinne Manning

ξ

“Swatch Test" was first published in Poetry Northwest, Volume 16 Number 2, Summer and Fall 2021.

Rachel Edelman is the author of Dear Memphis (River River Books, 2024). Her poems have been published in Narrative, Muzzle, The Threepenny Review, and The Seventh Wave, among many other journals. Raised in a Jewish family in Memphis, she now teaches high school English in Seattle.

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