The Body Reimagined as a Snail

Poetry, Portia Yu

1: Human Instincts

A bedroom. A spiral shell. Shadows move along the floor, twist, form into a whorl. The light from the window streams in. I glisten. There is just enough space here for me to lie on my side. I lean back, allowing several of my thoughts to be exposed. Thoughts unfurl slowly, begin to waft. I harden them into phrases. The ceiling bends and arches for me. Words collect in the tip of the spiral, calcify. I shrink. I dream of the sky. 

2: Wilderness

A forest. A spiral shell. I grew these trees from my mind. They are taller than me and wiser than me. Still, with enough patience, it is possible for a snail to climb all the way to the uppermost branches. The distance between one branch and the next is variable. Sometimes it’s the distance between a word and the intake of breath that follows. Sometimes it’s the gulf between dreaming and awakening. Each leaf contains a small sliver of a heart. Gusts of wind make lines that curve and furrow. When I reach the top, I am content in the night. My eyes are moon-sized. This greenery is enough for me to drink. 

3: Exhibition

What can you do with a shell? You can lay it down sideways, or ring it like a bell. You can rotate it along its axis. You can crush it in your hand. The shell is my room. I touch its lip, the worn frame of the door. I crouch. On one side, the room. On the other, the sky. I tread over the line and back and eternally back and forth. A shell is placed in a box. A body, a specimen, a spiral shell. Someone tucks it in a drawer. 

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Portia Yu is a writer from Hong Kong. Her micro-chapbook Alternative Bus Routes in a City Long Gone was published as part of Ghost City Press’s summer series in 2025. In addition, her poems have appeared in Where Else: An International Hong Kong Poetry Anthology, and in journals such as Strange Horizons, Frontier Poetry, LIKE A FEVER and streetcake magazine.