Long White Rope

It’s true. I tied her up with a long white rope. What’s life without hope for escape? What’s summer without levitation? There was a pulley. She was an angel. It was all in good fun. It was a stage we were going through, so we decided to perform upon it, to put on a play for the neighbors.

At one point, she was being chased by a wild pack of dogs. The audience could not distinguish this scene from the daily goings-on in Dog Town. After the grand finale, she unharnessed herself and turned in her wings. The cost of eternity was too steep. She wanted her nipples and genitals back. She bagged the afterglow and walked home dreading the afterlife’s subdued, polite applause.

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 a current book of prose poems: Invisible Histories. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit, and Cream City Review.

A Song for Glen