Developing Negatives

          Flaccid: a red rag

                      w/spit—

                      a conclusion:

                                            concomitant/contaminant/

                                  expectorate/expectant

          The figure’s minutes

          write down

                                  pleasure/incitement

                                  as naked as the skin

          just manages

                                  erasures

                                  + spit is a linguist’s mark

                                  washed away

          w/ soap + hot water

                                  Though invisible

          it remedies a life line +

                                  lights a print of memory

          as scent/crust— slips

                                  us into night’s notes

                                  as remembered tongues touched

          We rise                       disassembled

          + happy                      while we lean out

                                          on that line

          to dampen our antagonists—

          to taste again/to touch the other

Adam Stutz is the the co-curator of the Non-Standard Lit Reading Series with Mark Wallace and Jeanine Webb. He is the author of the chapbook Transcript (Cooper Dillon Books, 2017) and The Scales (White Stag Publishing, 2018). He currently resides in San Diego, CA.
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