gary lundy



i don’t think it will fit. so large a profile.

but it does. goes right on in until fully tethered. he says. it’s like cotton candy. i say. more like pine tar up the stem of a baseball bat. next days come and go. like clockwork. spitting out little gurgles of tar. all around the house. he looks pleased with himself. holds a rusty tire iron. i bend my eyes back down and smile inside. just as deeply. before a shave and shower. sleep waters its way down my spine.

it is strange and a bit uncanny. how alone i remain.

outside of the familiar silence. that house that felt always like our home. although it wasn’t. much more than a bit less than vision or horizon.

oh. and i am reading a new book that purples the retina. the pages blank stares. depending more upon the reader than what the absent words promise. she may visit tonight and if so a sudden quiet quickens the dimly lit room french.

you ask permission to see the gentle tall giant of a man. while your hair gets shorter by degrees until your neck approves exposure. lopped off strands of meaning circling the edge of the lamps light.

otherwise an enormous risk of complacency. i enjoy how the hair frames the image so as to indicate a hint of approval. a recognition. we are on the best of days caught up in our clutter and dust.

internal salvation feels more like blame than eternity. as you grapple through dreams to reach my skin. the formula spread across the sheets under cover of clinched eyes. nails scraped across skin resistance.

it is a temperature the size of two hundred pounds.

cold and wet. he says. it’s like wearing a womans underwear. i think. it’s more like wearing a childs hairless skin. we still argue over spilt meaning as a shot of morning cold light disrupts illuminating. when you light the candle to grieve. dead angels scuttle beneath the floorboards. note pad distillery. mostly i adapt to changeless being among angels of want and longing. among the better nights at least. he doesn’t want to pose nude for you which makes all of us wonder what he’s hiding.

gary lundy’s work has appeared in a variety of magazines and journals including most recently: My Favorite Bullet, Cedilla, Indefinite Space, and The Prague Revue. his fourth chapbook, when voices detach themselves, will be published this fall by is a rose press. He lives in Missoula, Montana.
 
 
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