Six Lies

Sean Lovelace
· in ,

Thunder during snow. Disintegration. A run over snake in the road leading to the Night Dance. Josephine Baker tumbles off a roof. This moon low and large. How often will we misspell names? Josephine Baker bruised and corrosive, is that the opinion? We’ve had drought forever and people keep talking drought. Someone better, better do something soon, but no one does a thing. THE PLAN IS TO LOVE YOUR LONELINESS. Josephine Baker’s fractured heel on the baked dirt. Her dress riding up her knees. The top buttons flung away. Lines of sweat along her shoulder blades. A whit, a whit of difference—explain to us. Josephine Baker flashes some triangle of breast, thick hard nipple. They won’t give morphine for the pain; they suspect alcohol. They are well-fed. Examine the facts at hand: 1) Every mailbox cut open. 2) The use of service elevators. 3) A snarl at the door. There is something sheen/sweet/hard about flesh, you whisper. Listen to me: there is no plan. We should be ashamed.
The Liar’s Meal
The Whopper
The Coldest Beer on Earth I Do Drops
Hot Saliva
[…as implicated by his top hat and green shirt—just a sliver, see it?—rest- ing on his stool, is seen in a sort of aesthetic tussle, unknowing of the prophetic butterfly outside his window, a lateral view] [this is not dress rehearsal stupid fuck]

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Sean Lovelace teaches creative writing at Ball State University. HOW SOME PEOPLE LIKE THEIR EGGS is his award-winning flash fiction collection by Rose Metal Press. His works have appeared in Crazyhorse, DIAGRAM, Quick Fiction, Sonora Review, Willow Springs, and so on. He blogs at http://seanlovelace.com. He likes to run, far.