Samantha Duncan

Caramelized Addiction

My lipstick tazes the air
while palms drum you

through stretched skin,
my invisible blood,

I spread cake batter
on the walls, ice the roof,

get ready. Pucker up
in my sugar womb

party. Who’d predict me
presenting so different

for nine months,
despite a face

of the same hue?
Once an artist,

now some kind
of casserole dish

placed just so,
layers that cannot

be scraped off.

---

Fire Engine Red

My Lipstick Doesn’t Go To Heaven,
But A Kiss From A Cloud Would Make A Cute Phone Background Photo.

Instead, a reminder

that Texas hills allow Freedom Of The Religion, an illusion
like a dog’s triumphant sprint at a fenced-in dog park. Fetch

some naughty, once in a while, keeps the skin warm and lucent.

I take my child to the midway, watch her aim merely for ducks
with a toy gun.

I would do a hand-stand in a dress, Were It Not For.

How we kid ourselves
by calling a violation a gaze and not the reverse,
by not using the bullets lodged in our mouths,

and instead wrap around the grit, imagine only the taste
of the bottoms of things.

The saving grace: that small window between old and young,
in which I’ll reverse psychology the city sidewalks, leave my red prints

on every building and sewer drain,

enough to blind them all.




--
Samantha Duncan is the author of four poetry chapbooks, including Playing One on TV (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2017) and The Birth Creatures (Agape Editions, 2016), and her fiction has appeared in Meridian, The Pinch, The Conium Review, and Queen Mob’s Tea House. She previously served as Executive Editor for ELJ Editions and reads for the print journal Gigantic Sequins. She lives in Houston and can be found at planesflyinglowoverhead.blogspot.com and @SamSpitsHotFire.