Male Lipstick
Lauren Bolger (Keele University, England)
The haziest I’ve been in a while
I wonder who in the world is sorry now
I wonder which of the male statues
is sitting down which one leaned
and which one whispered
and was hung from a tree
I can’t help but wait
after all the faces I’ve drilled through
like the stones in Lyon
the ones I couldn’t take on the plane
and had to push through a letterbox
I painted each mouth then mine red fleur
I know the chorus is flat in here too flat
to shy away
from the draw that dies in the mind
on a sun lounger
tying the same plimsoll
over and over
Lauren was the winner of the Roy Fisher Prize for poetry in 2012 for her collection Lucy’s Evening, published by Keele University Press. Lauren is currently studying a PhD in Creative Writing and English at Keele University where she is working on her next collection provisionally titled, ‘4.23pm, relaxant‘. She fuses her poetry with music in the projects Locean and Water, both have scheduled releases due out this year with Tesla Tapes.
