Studies of the human body

I

Think of a place with no shadows
where grown men and women fade
into walls while their children watch
their muscles fail. A ring of light
like a warning, and the only one
still dressed is the man hung
on the wall that could be a window.

II

Up here the air is so purple
I feel my body start to swell
then split like eggs spitting
oil and muscle onto pedestrians
below. When they’ve thinned out
I levitate until my hair’s just right
then sit and wait to feel the draught
from the tear in the sky.

III

I’m at a bullfight watching a man
turn into an animal but before
things get too symmetrical
he peels right and sends
the beast’s weight flying
like a fishing line into the crowd
who know it’s wrong but stay to see
the art of fear, the victory of life
over life. On the ground
a little blood, the last
of the snow.

Patrick Sykes's writing has appeared in The White Review, Test Centre and Stand. He won the Irish Independent's New Irish Writing competition and was a runner-up in the 2020 Hive Young Writers' Competition. He works as a journalist in London.