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6/3/14

Mike Lala


from In the Gun Cabinet               

  
in the theater of fear               
the curtain rises               
when it falls, I applaud               
& move back a row               
through the orchestra, mezzanine               
on stage, the same scene               
repeats as I lip-synch               
the score in each seat               
up the stairs, in the nosebleeds               
exhausted, I wear               
my language trailing               
like a bride’s train extending               
up the steps I descend               
to the last seat I left               
with the pair of lorgnettes               
I needed at the end               
of my vision, a door—no               
a veil               
at the edge               
of experience, a curtain               
a garter on the border               
of my tale, a vestige               
a bride’s train extending               
to the lip of the stage               
an old picture, bleaching               
my actor, the way I recall him               
my lips part, I pin him               
his spine with my tongue               
                  to the frame               
my spit like glass               
his body in motion               
beneath it, pulsing               
a sentence, looping               
its speaker, a garter, who               
wrested like gun               
then turns on her self               
suspended               





Mike Lala was born in Lubbock, TX and finally lives in New York. He has two chapbooks: [fire!] ([sic] Press 2011), and Under the Westward Night (Knickerbocker Circus 2010), and poems (soon) in Boston Review, Fence, The Brooklyn Rail, Colorado Review, The Awl, VOLT, and others. www.mikelala.com.

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