Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Larry Duncan - One Poem

Saint Lucy Lost Her Bowl

Saint Lucy brushes against me
as I order another Bushmills,
her eyes in her hands.
She has lost her golden dish.
After all, the Dark Ages
ended in the advent of perspective—
bodies piled on the steps of the Academy,
every face bearded, every hand and finger
curled along the concept of a ground,
save the cracked blue sky between
Adam and the hidden phallus of God.
My favorite Cubism being
the slow slope just below the waist
punctuated by the bone of the hip
and “My mother is a Fish.”
This is a mystery
unavailable for digestion
or search engine complicity.
I don’t understand these directions.
They don’t exist between the bottles
or on my walk back home.
I got her in the corner booth
after I took her hands
and she lifted her skirt so I could see.
There are dimensions curled tighter
than either Michelangelo
or Da Vinci could imagine.
This is a mystery.
I like the way they sigh
with their throats between my thumbs
but my mother said a man’s feet
were made for standing,
particularly when a woman needs a seat.
“We never really touch,” she says.
My hand working like a fulcrum
between her thighs.  “It’s all
repulsion of electromagnetic fields.”
This is a mystery.
The way she covets her breasts
and laughs when I become a child
at the sight of them.  Don’t even
get me started on the Pre-Raphaelites.
There are too many lilies in that water.
Of course, Botticelli is the best
but my softness lies in the penitent
kneeling beside the bedside
of pornographic swells. Their hearts
and holes plastered to mimic design
along the walls of the next whiskey hall.



Larry Duncan currently lives in the smallest apartment in Long Beach, CA. In 2010, he received his MFA from California State University, Long Beach. His poetry and fiction has appeared in various print and online publications, including Juked, the Mas Tequila Review, Emerge Literary Journal, Bank Heavy Press, and the Fat City Review. His Chapbook Crossroads of Stars and White Lightning is available through Arroyo Secco Press. You can learn more about Larry and check out links to his other poetry at his website http://larrydunc.wix.com/larry-Duncan.

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