Postcards from the Knife-Thrower
May 15 Vallejo, CA
Magdalena said, let’s forget we’re strangers
Let’s talk about ragged breath
gasps for air
Let’s talk about binding hands
Let’s talk about pleasure too deep to describe
Let’s talk about exquisite freedom of release
Let’s talk about communion when pleasure collides with pain
Let’s talk about creating a world, our own wide-awake-make-believe-reality
Let’s talk about flushed lips
Let’s talk about blindfolds
black/white/red/silk/satin/cotton
Let’s talk about a hand on throat
fingers in pussy
Let’s talk about nails digging into skin
Let’s talk about pulsing sweat and bodies
pressed tight against the wall
Let’s talk about us
I bet you’re in love with me now.
Postcards from the Knife-Thrower
May 16 Napa, CA
I grew up in a dark desperate sexy messy beautiful world, a Turin shroud
of pain. Lazy blues from an AM radio, a songless bird, dreamt of in winter;
an Indian (Native American/Indigenous) fable, a story with no moral, no ending.
Under a cloud-rimmed sky I picked at a hole in my shoe, hair home-sheared,
neck blood-red from cold and shame.
Train whistles came first, then the clack-clickety-clack of taconite running south;
a foreign language, the sounds familiar. Another unhappily-ever-after
punctuated in fists.
You were about thirteen, strawberry blonde straightedge smile, neon wide
lovely eyes; the world we conjured was precarious.
We were preached to, prayed on, and ready for iniquity but never all alone
in Gethsemane.
Woke this morning wanting you. A burning stifling need.
I miss the rhythm and cadence of you, the flash of light when you speak,
want to write your voice but have forgotten the sound of the ocean;
sharpen my knives in preparation for another make-believe battle.
Alex Stolis
Alex Stolis lives in Minneapolis; he has published poems in numerous journals. Two full-length collections, Pop. 1280 and John Berryman Died Here, were released by Cyberwit and available on Amazon. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Piker’s Press, Jasper’s Folly Poetry Journal, Beatnik Cowboy, One Art Poetry, Black Moon Magazine, and Star 82 Review. His chapbook, Postcards from the Knife-Thrower’s Wife, was released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2024, RIP Winston Smith from Alien Buddha Press in 2024, and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres by Bottlecap Press in 2024.
