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The Pedestal Magazine > Archives > Issue 55 > Poetry >Sean Lovelace - 5 of Spades

5 of Spades

Yes, I have seen the lock of glide from the deer. Like empty space. Like a dream. It made no sound, and then right there, upon you. It ached for hobbling. I have seen the wrappings, of aluminum flower stems, some form of Holiday. Some form of metallic leaves, of capillary. The Sunday of Highly Polished, of Fabric Evaporate. The Tuesday of Copper Thorns. Etc. On their long necks, like that painter. (I do not recall—many, many days of holding my breath.) Yes, I have seen when the rivers dammed, blockades of extended palms, whispers past your head (phosphorus or maybe stone skips), so our bodies are filled with water now, the Laboratory Seven say, and that makes sense: you cannot stop a river. We move from place to place. The sun shot out the throat of the earth. The moon all hubcapped beneath the sea. Around the base of a ragged bush, I hid. I lived on the latest Potato Flavor: Fog Gorgeous Stag. One old deer toppled off a billboard. To the highway. To the creek—its red blood off red clay, off sunglasses and a cane, off flowers; in the sunglass reflection, a wonderful thing: single white wild blossom. Now you don’t believe me. I see it in your sighs. I was the same way. “Just like a movie,” I mumbled. But it was not. It was a photo of a movie, a painting of the photo, and then someone set a fitful dance to the image, or…Fold. Unfold. Fold. I cannot say. There is litigation, and listen to the scrawled letter of my shower dripping (again). Time for the deep tub. I will try. I will let my breath hold me. Will let anything bloom. Where did my glad go? Fold. Unfold. Fold. Modigliani. Sure, OK.









Sean Lovelace likes to run, far. Other times he teaches at Ball State University. How Some People Like Their Eggs is his flash fiction collection from Rose Metal Press. His works have appeared in Crazyhorse, Diagram, Sonora Review, Willow Springs, and so on. He blogs at seanlovelace.com.

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