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Sheleen McElhinney's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Dogzplot, Poetry Is Currency, Sledgehammer Lit, and others. Her debut book, Every Little Vanishing, was the winner of the Write Bloody Publishing Book Award and will be released this October.
©2021 West Trade Review
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Sheleen McElhinney
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The Illusionist
After Natalie Diaz
My brother was a regular Houdini,
breaking free from the chains
of his addiction. He said, Watch me
cloak myself in death’s dark curtain,
then shake it loose, unscathed.
He practiced in his basement bedroom,
fifths of potent elixirs stuffed inside
hampers. I heard him screaming in the face
of the lion he was caged with. His arms
covered in claw marks.
He stood before me, wild irises like the blue
of a flame, said, Do you see me?
Can anyone see me? I clasped his face,
thumbs resting in the hollows of his cheeks,
and watched him vanish like smoke.
I heard him sob when the odds
seemed against him. Watched him slink
inside a box to cut himself in half, head
like a bloated ball of cotton. Believed when he said
those syringes were just props
filled with water. He said much of the draw
was the feel of the needle, the prick
of a pin to flesh. Not to worry, it’s all part
of the show. He brought in assistants,
always skinny, always blonde,
to slip the keys like a pill down his throat,
to fetch me when he went too far. He fashioned
costumes out of bed sheets
and rubber bands the width of an arm,
dyed them with blood,
sequined them with regret. He studied
all the tricks, learned all the secrets
from the illusionists in his circle. But it turned out
he wasn’t a great magician,
and he could’ve been so many things
Image by Jaroslav Devia on Unsplash
