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evan harrison

 

PRIZE GARDEN

 

Watch the roses, she said, rising.

I had a foot up on her plaster collie.

It was gorgeous and gorged.

Thanks, she said. I’m thinking about some antlers

to evoke what we’re calling immaculate nostalgia.

I summoned a pretty vision of dying right there,

but my ghost slept in the jaws of wicker.

It smelled like cloves and wet paint.

Watch the forehead, she said, frothing.

I leaned in to see the stingy rivulets of blood.

I felt the weight of anomie, bruising.

And a man came by with thick white shoes.

This is my pride and joy, she said, waving.

God must have a big box of crowns, I said,

and I noticed an easel, tortuous.

 

 

 

dirty face

 

Instead of a bouquet I got you a behaviorism

crusty with diamonds. It's in the pudding,

the leeches on my face.

I dropped change as I handed it to the clerk


and the clerk dropped change handling its

cold men. We're all sorry it's proof.


Instead of a philosophy I got this.

Think of how a cobra appears woozy

before lunging so I got you this the stems


alone. The leeches had been washed

it wasn't like a jungle caper. Nobody

smiles while eating really good pudding.

 

 

 

 

Evan Harrison is the author of Sham City (Omnidawn, 2012). His poems have recently appeared in Colorado Review and Valley Voices. He lives in Raleigh, NC.