by Jennifer Elise Wang

I am a magician,
Armed with secrets and craft,
Making the unreal materialize
Before your eyes.
I also make trinkets, buildings, and people
Disappear
As though they never existed.

I am familiar with David Copperfield;
I have studied the Pendragons;
And of course I am a fan
Of a famous Harry.
I have changed my name,
Made it alliterative and abbreviated—
Something to catch people’s attention,
Something they won’t forget.

With sleight of hand,
Manipulation of the mind,
I create more believers in one night
Than a missionary in one lifetime.
You know
Matter is neither created nor destroyed;
Telepathy, telekinesis,
And teleportation do not exist;
But in the moment I have your attention,
You believe
Ladies can appear out of thin air;
I can read minds; men can fly;
Elephants can vanish
To the place ladies came from
You believe every word
I say.

I am a magician,
But I do not use trap doors, smoke, or mirrors.
My stage is blank—
A sheet of paper;
My tools, words and punctuation;
My tricks, metaphors and meter.
Without them, I am nothing
More than a flamboyant
Teller of half-truths.
But anybody can form sentences,
Erase them into nonexistence;
Tricks and tools
Are not the secrets
To success.

The act is nothing
When you cannot summon
Symbols, settings, and characters,
When you have nothing
To lose with their absence,
When there is no meaning
Behind the words.
You must be a believer too.
Now you see it,
And now
You
.

 Image by Kelly Sikkema via Unsplash