Adam Stutz

ANGLER (A PRECIPITATION)

The indent of origin/a flight/a kiss goodnight

is a price check          the love like open

                          (like a salvo)—

perhaps a clarion        the backwash

is a bright          break in the throat—

a bitter license:           a charity

                          for something hidden

The organs       (a riot squad)

offer a harsh                    horizon

glowing in haunting         regrets

Forlornness                     has a knack for neon:

laced up with                   a backward-looking

lucidity

liquor stores

laundromats                   crash-pad

hopefulness                   + false narratives

         like anglers dangling lights

         for prey                these plots

                            promised refuge once

promised faulty temples

giving rise to love songs

                           ardent elegies

for our lechery

Solitude is a diktat       a refutation

an expulsion

an expectation             bleeding politely

The memory                dances

in clothed cravings       playing

spin-the-bottle              pursuing a body

a politic of lease

Adam Stutz is the the co-curator of the Non-Standard Lit Reading Series with Mark Wallace and Jeanine Webb. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Equalizer: Second Series, White Stag, The Cultural Society, A Sharp Piece of Awesome, Prelude, Be About It, Deluge, Dum Dum Zine, The Pinch, and Where is the River. He is the author of the chapbook Transcript (Cooper Dillon Books, 2017) and The Scales (White Stag Publishing, 2018). He currently resides in San Diego, CA.