Seth Leeper

fruit loop film loop

after mary ruefle

i thought the lacuna was a bird
of the Amazon with brilliant
crayon feathers, but alas, it was
actually a bird in a cave, stowed
away to preserve the pigment
of its plumage, but it spent
so much time in the dark,
it turned monochrome
and chirped in mono-
syllabic words, when, later,
passersby would offer it crumbs
so far beneath its perch,
it blurted out the synonym
for love and sex, perplexing
tourists who couldn’t discern
between a proposition
and a threat, the lacuna
occupied that space between,
the gape in the film reel,
where you have to decide
to end or to begin

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Seth Leeper is a queer poet. A 2022 Brooklyn Poets Fellow, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in River Styx, Salamander, Hobart After Dark, Juked and Always Crashing. He holds an M.A. in Special Education from Pace University and B.A. in Creative Writing and Fashion Journalism from San Francisco State University. He lives and teaches in Brooklyn, NY. He tweets @sethwleeper.