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.