Thia Bian

Godot, on Walking Backwards

In the uncombed mornings I sat in
the hallway, watched my father shave through the half-
open door – the careful angle of his fingers. The foreign
body of his throat, every breath a veined suggestion.
I would still like nothing to hang from the old oak tree.
Would still like the suggestion of dawn, the rope
flimsy with relief. Enter: the fish market afternoon, blood smeared dazed on
the concrete. Enter: the boy from childhood and his awful beautiful
eyes. No fucking – survival instinct, his father said, watched
his son disappear from his same place on the couch. They shipped
him home unable to look his father in the eye, which
meant he came home just how he left it. Minus the echo. Minus
the locked jaw. Plus his father right where he entered: home,
the light struck dumb at the table. Come morning
I shrug on an overcoat of sky. Every story I tell the absent
child. Mercy, I say, and mean it.

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Thia 尔雅 Bian is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Jiangsu, China. She recently graduated from Princeton University, where she studied comparative literature and global health; she currently lives in Boston. Her work can be found in The Adroit Journal, The Columbia Review and elsewhere.