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.