Tangram

Build a portrait of yourself with shapes from
the bucket on the table in the classroom.
I’ll do it with you, look: Today my face is
a red diamond, my torso a blue triangle turned
on its point. I’ll approximate my legs with a yellow
parallelogram, slice the shape with washable marker.
The pieces are too big to build eyes, ears,
teeth, feet, breasts, or fingers, but that’s okay.
Today, we can just be shapes.

***

Originally from Mississippi, Nick Creel is a poet and web developer sheltering-in-place in Massachusetts. After finishing their BA in computer science and writing at Marlboro College, they plan to pursue an MFA at UMass Boston. Their self-published interactive microchap Evidence is available now at ncreel.itch.io. Their work appears and is forthcoming in Sludge, Petrichor, Déraciné Magazine, and Mineral Lit Mag, among others.