Henry Cherry

In the Event of a Tie

For Cotton.

You etched your violet lipstick across your heart
like a renaissance neon 80s rooster
welded to the brass frame around your almond eyes

You’re the worst, you said, offering me a playing card,
the two of whatever frozen like a Chrysanthemum
in an amber bottle stored behind your ribs.

Any other person would be as animated as a patch of grass
but you eschewed the idiosyncrasies of mannequins
coiled like a snake but swathed in Isabel Marant, darting out

from the corn fields, unfazed by the menacing swarm of
bees trailing your horizon; no one knew the end was near until we
spotted the left behind coat meant for your slow absence.

About the Author

Henry Cherry has worked as a cowhand and a chef and is now a journalist and photographer based in Los Angeles. He has been nominated for the Pushcart and the Orison Award. Featured as a reader at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and at Litquake in San Francisco, his work has appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, Cathexis Northwest Press, Australia’s Cordite Poetry Review, The Louisiana Review, and the recent pandemic collection, Hello Goodbye Apocalypse.

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