IN LIEU OF IS
for Thomas Lowe Taylor

Pretend for a minute that this is not here.
Underline each occurence of the verb "to be,"
right under your nostrum. The point of this
piece is to illuminate the tenuous thread
over what is and what you think there is, and
slowly draw its way back to your bed. Adam crashes
everywhere he can with the openess of the too-young

at dodgeball to break another boy's glasses, crow-
crack laughlines whispering silt and jungledust.
The murmur above me is a coo Jarred rages sweet
into the phone of Diane's earlobe: necktie rage; to
observe the verb "to be" stagnating in my huntress'
new nightgown. I had the feeling that I was growing

nape where pain once scored itself whittle-tipsy
over the threads of a point misfixed. Renee and I,
to keep the home fires burning, pretend to be misfits
hot enough to scald your tongue. Really, we're kooler
inside the Kool Kids' paranoia: bathing with her bow,
naked as an asterisk tear, I watch her until she's
clean.
Grinding moon-fractal water until its nothing but
not a mark on her, not a scratch, the catsup/fry way
emptiness echoes the sun bruising ponds to moan
scathing velvet deliverence, divulged: I took my fork,

seriously, I stabbed it back where it came from again!

     Lewis LaCook was born in Lorain Ohio on November 5, 1970, making him a Scorpio. At fifteen he joined the Black River Poets, and had his first published poems appear in their review. Leaving the group in his early twenties, he wrote features for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, and the Lorain Journal. He is currently an undergraduate English major at Kent State University.
     His poetry has appeared in  LOST AND FOUND TIMES, WORLD LETTER, POTEPOETTEXT, POTEPOETZINE, WHISKEY ISLAND, LUNA NEGRA, ARIEL, BLACK RIVER REVIEW, THE COVENTRY READER,  etc.
     Lewis is working on a long collaborative e-mail poem called OUTSIDE THE BOTHER OF SUNLIGHT with Sheila E. Murphy and a collective text called UTOPIA which features several authors, among whom are Murphy, Thomas Lowe Taylor, and John Cone.

      Editor of the e-zine IDIOLECT, Lewis lives in Kent, OH.