TO RETURN STARS TO CHEEK OF MIRROR

she looks for words in her pockets to place at the end of her lips. with my phone, i look, too. i find a pill. i find a pill. i find a bell. i find a ball.

best flower for putting out a fire

i am a person who exited her body but one she could never identify. i find a bed. i find a hate. i find a song. she tells me her tongue is made of water.

best way to contact a former self

everything typed becomes a question. i find a bowl. i find a bill. i find a cloud. this place an oblong yawn. this place a mail slot. i find what i am told to find. i send what i am told to find. i find deeds. i find deaths. i find debts.

name for a silence heard while someone else is speaking

she begins a sentence without capital letter. each breath adds new noun, new adjective to a stream without spaces.  

she stops speaking. she stops eating. i transfer words from the fissure to another between my thumbs. i find her nouns. i find her adjectives. i watch them leak.  


William Lessard’s work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Fence, and the Southwest Review. His chapbook, instrument for distributed empathy monetization, was published by KERNPUNKT Press. He is Poetry and Hybrids editor at Heavy Feather Review. Read more of his work at: www.williamlessardwrites.net.