For This Next Trick, I’ll Need a Volunteer
Glen Armstrong

I'LL NEED SOMEONE with a sense of the absurd, someone who will fit into the jacket and the box, someone whose exotic scent will distract those lurching in for a better view. There are so few tricks worth doing these days. The teenagers all have x-ray eyes. I need someone whose known pockets run deep enough, whose secret pocket seeps into another dimension, someone with a lot of storage as opposed to a lot of baggage.

I need someone to stand in front of me, hinting to the world that not all beauty is symmetrical. I need someone to obscure and appreciate my hands. I need a prom date who understands the melancholy of ritual. I need a metaphysical beard so that no one will see me tinkering with this oh-so-physical world.

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Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has three new chapbooks: Set List (Bitchin Kitsch,) In Stone and The Most Awkward Silence of All (both Cruel Garters Press.) His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit and Cloudbank.

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