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Poetry || SubmissionsPoems by Derek GallenA Waiting Room in Long Islandis a picture Norman Rockwellwould find flat with too many mirrors reflecting each other not that Norman placed judgment on anyone I just never quite knew I heard he told one helluvah story and his pictures are poppy – Right now he looks at me through the blank TV flopped over the pink couch wondering what I caught and should he come near? or is it me who feels threatened here but he looks at his mommy who in turn looks at me through the edge of Sunday’s newspaper headlined a terrible love trapped in pictures and brief obituaries PolaroidI asked him again to play for me,the black piano, or not to smile at least; maybe just to close his eyes and kiss away release – and if you look closely past the cloudy chalkboard, past his white-wash skin, past the deep red cloud mixed within his shadows, if you look that carefully and not over his hands, you can see him. TimeThis is you:another princess in pink to hold onto. That cell phone there, the archway where a light from our bathroom darkens your face. Rows of shoes falling over another to be worn again by you, then it will be measured by my watch. The light flips off (deepens the corners of the ceiling, dents in the bed, harpoons in the chest.) Retract, I’ll give you blood from my hands – pink and grand. Maybe I’ll catch my breath – fuck it, I’ll just cut my hair and say I never left. A Romance of the BunrakuSet something off that brushedthe grass and steel; skittered across a windy memoir tucked inside every garage and bedroom and attic, words whispered to yourself to stop. A boy inside himself put his toys away and, hearing a knock at the door, resumed. In terms of measurement, size was beyond him – plastic superheroes became powers of good and evil battling a colossus, mechanical planets – themselves. The knock started up again and preceded a wooden voice with a warble of words, “My name is Mother,” said the wood, “supper’s on the table.” The boy buried his dead mutants and sealed the case, his mouth open to a rushing blaze of air. AccidentI was outside picking my nosewhen a flock of women passed by. I triumphantly flicked a snooty-looking gob to their vicinity (was it flag-shaped? it’s difficult to recall all intoxicated snot-art) and returned to my lovely book: Some guy was polishing his black gun named Chum. When the ambulance came I was ripped from my world and submitted a quick look (I was mid-sentence) to the christmasy flashing red-blue, red-blue. Out pop men uniformed beneath a street lamp. White hue— I meant to say halo. The purple car was tanning belly up, returning the favor blowing smoke. Again I fixed head to book. Guy shoots another guy in bed. My mother told me if the world exploded I wouldn’t notice. I say I’d be too dead to comprehend it. She said quiet and beat me purple. One must always daydream at times like this— no one likes the whiner.
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