House of India #96

By Glen Armstrong

I listen. Bits from moments ago return. I misspeak. I rake the leaves and shovel the snow. I

pause, and people think that I am slow, but it takes time for me to perceive the outline. The

border.

There is a flashcard of the waitress and a flashcard of the stew. Flash 2 x 8. My memory arm-

wrestles with my will to reinvent the past. Flash the Ottoman Empire. One side is a question and

the other an answer. The edge of the card is not so thin that it cannot be discussed.

I hear subtle differences in tone. The murmur in the adjacent room becomes a confession.

Revelation. A request to be loved in specific terms. On a schedule. With a list of props. But this

starts as a murmur. Unsafe. Open. To be interpreted.

Downhill and uphill are matters of face and ambition. Pace and revelation. That which impacts

the body like a ton of bricks rarely gets used to build a house. I live in a structure built from soda

straws. The cylinders happen between two circles.

Glen Armstrong (he/him) holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters. He has three current books of poems: Invisible Histories, The New Vaudeville, and Midsummer. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit, and The Cream City Review.

Find him here: https://www.facebook.com/glen.armstrong.5