✧ Winner of the 2022 Gearhart Poetry Contest ✧
Selected by Benjamin Garcia
Closed Circuit
After Félix González-Torres’ “untitled (perfect lovers)”
My therapist draws in blue pen two circles
on a lined notepad. I twist my wedding band
with the fingers of my other hand. The two
lines intersect to make three shapes. Sitting
across from her, the third shape looks like an
open eye. “In this diagram, there is too much
overlap to be considered a healthy relationship.”
She draws a second set of circles, their concave
shapes connect only at a shared edge, as if
each is facing away. “Healthy relationships
consist of two distinct individuals.” Her wall
clock frowns, hollow-faced, hands apart.
From my position, the second diagram looks
like the symbol for infinity. The clock snaps.
I wonder if she sees symmetry the way I do:
a camera lens spins at each end until a subject
is pulled into focus; a total eclipse requires
two celestial bodies and begins with a stage
called First Contact; it’s common for two
women in love to put their whole hands inside
each other. I no longer measure my age from
my birth, but from the precise second we met.
CARLING MCMANUS (they/she) is a queer poet whose work appears in Pleiades, Best New Poets, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Meridian, Moist Poetry Journal, Carve Magazine, and Pigeon Pages. Carling’s writing has been recognized with fellowships, scholarships, and grants from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Find more poems at carlingmcmanus.com.