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Duncan Slagle

Rules of the Form

[         ] discuss the gaps. I
try to search my concealed memories
for the exit; which door leads back
into the light.     It makes no sense.

I touched his [            ]
& wince. He bound my [            ]
so no sound escapes. Another sense
leaves. I’m getting ahead of myself.

The image captured [      ]. I shook
free. On the other side of [         ]
it was noon. I knew this, but couldn’t stretch
to [      ] him. We grew
late. That’s unspecific. I’m trailing
behind myself.

The therapist says write it out
include every detail. Keeping
them will ruin you.

I’m a poet until I walk back
into my body
& feel his [         ]
now bleed
the color like [         ]
now press on
speech unstrung by [         ]
what hurts

Although [            ] isn’t specific
I write it like his name
[         ].
Who refused to claim
what grows silent, what is kept. Bad poets

cannot              remember         & I [          ]
a form stitched into curtains,            which cover the door

& [         ] prevents my leaving. I have no say
in          [            ] the locks. Senses
return. He [      ] the gaps.                           to be specific.

Memory is         a difficult form,            a late & endless search, now
                         I’d let [       ]                 ruin me.

Duncan Slagle is a queer poet and performer from Alaska and then Minnesota. Duncan is the author of FATHER HUNT (L’Éphémère Review) & currently attends the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a First Wave Scholar studying Ancient Greek, Latin, and Creative Writing. The winner of the 2018 Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize, the 2018 Mikrokosmos Poetry Prize, and a 2018 Best of the Net nominee, Duncan has more work online at duncanslagle.com.

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