William Alexis

Crepuscular

A thumb swipes the river and the river
goes on. Someone's daughter 

in the blue light of a statute
I can't pronounce. I keep 

the sound off. I keep
the century in my pocket— 

its little glass mouth
against my thigh, warm 

the way a fresh wound
is warm. Neither 

the hunted nor the hunter
but the hour that can't decide. 

The feed loads a body
the way a field loads snow— 

slowly, then entirely, then
as if it had always been 

that white, that still.
I double-tap. The heart 

blooms red. Somewhere
a mother is on her knees 

in a language the screen
has not learned to caption. 

I scroll. The algorithm
stitches me a country 

from what I can't stop
watching. What I can't 

stop. The light
dims. The creatures 

who live between
come out now—

bright-eyed, starving,
mistaking the glow

for dawn.

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William Alexis is a writer from Georgia, United States, whose work has been recognized by the New York Times, Bennington College and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, among others. When he's not writing, he can be found with a Baldwin novel in hand, lost in an archive, or losing a quiet, ongoing battle with math.