Adrian S. Potter

Poetry

Adrian S. Potter writes poetry and prose in Minnesota. He is the author of the poetry collection Everything Wrong Feels Right and the prose chapbook The Alter Ego Handbook. Some publication credits include North American Review, Obsidian, Jet Fuel Review, and Kansas City Voices. Visit him online at http://adrianspotter.com/.

In Which Love Is a Kind of Falling

Rumors shake up the town like a bag of marbles. Shift them enough and they fall out the mouth, smooth and black as tar. A proliferation of lies makes me jittery, which is to say, there are far worse things than the truth. Me, I’ve been writing letters to the Midwestern sky and mailing them to the wrong address. Darling, I’m so dry these days that I could turn to dust, but I have big plans, multifaceted but subject to coding errors. A kind of cryptography, prone to hidden meanings and hysteria. You do this thing where you leave me, but it’s a parlor trick, sleight of hand, something I trick into happening. You always come back, eventually, like a hotel pool you’ve been crashing for years. Like an eclipse, or dark spot in my vision. You shine so bright it’s intoxicating, which is to say, it’s terrifying.

Lately, my prose poems have meandered away from a more conventional narrative, drifting toward something less linear, more disjointed. I patch ideas together and allow the words to rub together until they produce friction or fire. Add hard luck, the blues, and squeeze in some cynicism. Voila.

Listen: