the roller derby has come to town,
the crash course in cryptic conundrums,
boiled riddled, cabbage patch eyeballs
hung from ramshackle christmas trees
an ornamentation of femininity,
clasped like two buckles on a pleather purse
a small cage for wingless cryptids
to hunt inside a black purse-lipped-pocket
for a tiny crumb of something to force
oneself to not eat
pocket-squaring away all the details
four square meals and triple-decker heels
whopper sized eyelids dressed in hunger
draped in trembling blue glitter
tipped with the wing-edged blade of black
that flips itself in and out
for any given occasion, or any re-written
fantasia; the soft callow wind of pressing a brush
into the corners of your cheekbones, find
the taxonomy of where the ridges and mountains
of the bridge of your nose meets the
landscape of your cheeks - rosy, clown-coupled
dripping with rolling mascara rivers
crimson blood and the perfect shade
of pink, to stand flush with your flesh,
to blush; not out of embarrassed or flattery
but a permanent mark pressed to the outside;
an attempt to capture the fleeting, passing, blushing moment
that the fire within
blooms hot on the surface, out of
bliss, ecstasy, nervousness, warmth;
the inexplicable, un-reproducable,
flash of an instant,
upon the washed tablecloth of the face
the marbled tremor of something which passes
only in presence and reaction;
placed, delicately, purposefully, precipitously
above the furrowed hillside of the cheekbone
below the temple
just so / a map,
for a place you cannot
get to from a road
for a place you cannot name
Lauren Suchenski has a difficult relationship with punctuation. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and four times for The Best of the Net. Her full-length collection “All You Can Measure” (2022) as well as a chapbook “Full of Ears and Eyes Am I” (2017) is available from Finishing Line Press. Another chapbook “All Atmosphere” is also available from Selcouth Station (2022). More of her writing can be found on Instagram @lauren_suchenski or on Twitter @laurensuchenski.