Flèche

by Jeddie Sophronius

I can’t get to you from where I am:
our distance too wide, my mind and body

too uncertain, your reaction unknown.
Your blade a vulture circling

above the whole of me, waiting
for my fall. My breath ragged,

I can’t go on. How do I close
this distance between us?

I see a gap under your arm,
a hole that your blade doesn’t cover.

In the moment, I beat your blade
away, propel myself in a single

momentum. Touché.

Jeddie Sophronius (he/they) is a Chinese-Indonesian writer from Jakarta. He received his MFA from the University of Virginia, where he served as the editor of Meridian. His work has appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Prairie Schooner, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. They spend their past time getting beaten in fencing and chess.