Michael Lambert

This is Indian Land

 

Every summer they rebuild this town. Heavy-set men with heavy-set hands, eyes

that tell stories. Heavy-set tourniquets on hard-earned head wounds.
It's a bad joke, really--
"Gravity, I love you. But, you're bringing me down."
What I mean to say is that meat raffles are for real.
Aging beauticians take up new professions
pancake makeup & gut-strings.
 
You know, it's funny what gets me:
the sound of a train, conductor heavy on the horn:
a slow-motion smile hammered into Vaseline:
that bush he swore
was burning.

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Michael Lambert is currently living in Wisconsin. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Mixed Fruit, Red River Review, Symmetry Pebbles and IMG. In 2011 he was selected as a finalist in UW-Madison’s Lit Fest, and in 2012 was awarded the Thomas Hickey Creative Writing Award at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.