when you stepped out of the bath, the mirror laughed
at the wrinkles cartwheeling down your belly
and the slack-jawed skin just hanging around.
Your once round-shouldered breasts flapped about
not quite sure what was still expected of them.
You surveyed the age spots, scars and crooked bits—marks
of the times you trolleyed your body through life like a cocky suitcase.
And then you towelled it, this loyal, beautiful friend.

Stories and poems by Atma Frans have been published in The New Quarterly and Arc Poetry Magazine, as well as long-listed for The ELQ/Exile’s Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Competition and the Writers Union’s Short Prose Competition. In her writing, Atma searches for the voice beneath her personas: woman, immigrant, mother, Sikh, trauma survivor, expressive arts therapist, queer, and poet. She lives in Gibsons, B.C.