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Twenty-Ten Rule

By John LaPine
your boss says, her heels high, hair
black feathers. Smile at guests
twenty feet away, greet them at
ten.
Her lips squeeze out words less
sour. By afternoon, you've counted
fourteen greasy coffee mugs,
nine stacks of sheets, seven high, for
each of five floors, nearly a foot
of pillowcases, sixteen wine glasses— 

a windchime. And in early morning light,
the word “poem” looks like “lie,”
but you aren't sure if it's noun or verb,
                              untruth or stillness.
When he enters the elevator,
the man with hair like shattered
glass, belly of a bull, wraps
tendrils around nape,
seems to sniff you. He is
bucket of worms, he is flesh
soft in hard plastic,
breath humid ghosts— 

breath a slug’s trail. You look familiar,
he says. The 409 makes you sneeze.
Let it drip from rags. Imagine it
melting the floor, releasing pillars of
cathedral light in shafts.
                    Have we met?
Says he recognizes you from Grindr.
                    I've never fucked
                    a black boy before,
asks you if the stereotypes are true,
asks you to open a door, to steal
away to a room, blow him in
a restroom or fuck right here on the
lift, his breath, coffee ice cream,
hand-churned thick and milky. It fills
the moving room                 a chill.
By tonight,                           he still will not have fucked a black boy.
Ten feet away, you remember
                              you forgot to smile.

The Sound of Hair Growing is Deafening

By John LaPine
The first time I have sex
like a caterpillar
brighten the room
beans to chalk,
I don't know how to put him in
I remember locker
mud & musk
eclipsed by a bluff
Sit alone in the stall with
I keep my socks on

My fear of failure looks like a feather
dripping with Dawn dish soap
natural oils from flighty birds
their grease too effectively
years of therapy
don't know this
to correct this
in it

My aunties' voices fall from their mouth like
orange peel.
Let me count the ways my body has failed me
They teach me the Electric Slide
​at twenty-five
to smile for photos
to cut my hair
calls me ma'am
dark hair from my
too much soy
In college
& I make a choice
with my hips
Now I don't
I only swim with a shirt on
​I never swim

​catches skin on the way down






says he'll pray on me
know how to put him in
they keep saying







a battery





















forearm

two boys say




The barbell
​the concrete

& it's tender for a week
​opens when I scrub dishes
& opens when I shower &
​opens when




​It's okay

I make love
Glass & stale coffee
               & he grinds fresh
only black

rooms at thirteen
three houses
a stagnant moon
               a ghost
the entire time


It strips
it fights
leads to rehab
Some volunteers
It takes more volunteers
I fear this poem needs more God
I don't know how to put Him in.





I forget
I'm afraid
The waitress
I pluck
​I eat

​               You walk like a girl
to walk less
& more like a board
know how to unlearn this
then
slips
​breaks





I still don't swim
               My brother
I don't
Through the door,
We're all guys here.


Elegy

​For Stephon Clark
By John LaPine
Picture
Picture

John LaPine has an MA in Creative Writing & Pedagogy from Northern Michigan University (NMU) and volunteered as Associate Editor of creative nonfiction & poetry at Passages North, NMU's literary journal, for three years. His work has appeared in the Foliate Oak Literary Journal, Hot Metal Bridge, The Rising Phoenix Review, & Glass Poetry's Resist series, and is forthcoming in Glint Literary Journal, Apofenie, yell/shout/scream, Petrichor, & Midwestern Gothic. He begins teaching English at Butte College in August 2018.
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