Alec Hershman

Ars Poetica

The King and Co. would be coming
with their laughter and their hounds
and the glee of their triggers. From nerves,
I thought to excuse myself. I don't know how
the antechamber extended
so as not to let me get too far.
Or how the ears outran me
like light in a mirror. To play the fool
was the only corner left, I felt. Forsaken
by speed, I turned to camouflage
and sprinkled myself with the cheap,
shredded cheese the kitchen used
to make the Royal Burritos. I lay prone
and sculptural on a foyer table.
It was a measure of my heat,
and of my wit. The King came in,
his stooge in tow, and like a wind
over grasses, little switches flickered
in the eyes of all my friends.
Of course he saw me there. And was derisive,
and amused. I hate your work and always have,
he said, and the lie of overstatement
seemed suddenly a bully's form of grace.
My chased heart stood still and lewd,
and sent a fistly smirk across my face.
I had been too hard on myself,
and there was a nausea in knowing it.
Cheese fell from my chest
in soft, shaggy pieces.
It was hard to fear him,
faced with his comedic churl, and mine,
and the overvelvet of his robes,
and the haughty circles of his fingers overhead.
He had stepped through a small fog
at the entrance I had mistaken for a ghost,
and the bald spot with apology he sought,
once stubborn as a tooth within me, rose
easily and white upon my tongue.

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Alec Hershman (he/him) is the queer author of the forthcoming For a Second, In the Dark (MWC Press, 2022), as well as two previous volumes: Permanent and Wonderful Storage (Seven Kitchens, 2019) and The Egg Goes Under (Seven Kitchens, 2017). He has received awards from The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The St. Louis Regional Arts Counsel, The Jentel Foundation and The Institute for Sustainable Living, Art and Natural Design. You can find links to his work online at alechershmanpoetry.com. He lives in Michigan.