A Whole Unguarded Afternoon, by Ian Li

Photo by Robert Nagy

A Whole Unguarded Afternoon

Cliche finds me in the frozen foods aisle,

paralyzed by a dozen brands

arranged like a police lineup,

feeling the particular shame

of a man who has forgotten

how to find joy in choice.

I run the shower too hot, watching

steam press against the mirror,

my reflection going soft

until I am only a shape

in the way I used to be

only a number.

What I don’t say to anyone:

how sometimes I miss the certainty of it—

scheduled meals, counted hours,

the way time moved like a barge

through fog, slow but inevitable.

Out here, time is a dog off-leash.

Out here, a Monday can become

anything at all, frighteningly,

and I find myself throwing

bread to pigeons for hours,

because I can’t figure out

how else to be useful.

Somewhere a man is scratching

small birds into the plaster

the way I once did,

believing that he’ll fly free

on the other side of all that waiting,

as if he could just step into all that sky

the way you step into the sea,

not noticing until you’re in it

that you can’t remember how to swim.

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Ian Li (he/him) is a Chinese-Canadian economist, developer, writer, and poet, who started writing in late 2023 after a lifetime of believing he could never be creative. Find his poetry featured in Strange Horizons, Year's Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction, and the Toronto subway system, among other venues.