Robert L. Dean, Jr.

Robert L. Dean, Jr. is the author of Pulp (Finishing Line Press, 2022); The Aerialist Will not be Performing: ekphrastic poems and short fictions to the art of Steven Schroeder (Turning Plow Press, 2020); and At the Lake with Heisenberg (Spartan Press, 2018). A multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, his work has appeared in many literary journals. Dean has been a professional musician and worked at The Dallas Morning News. A member of The Writers Place and Kansas Authors Club. He lives in Augusta, Kansas, midway between the Flint Hills and the Air Capital of the World.

Love Like Knives

You hold them by the blades, arm’s length, spread fan-like.
I prefer holsters on my hips, like to feel the weight lessen throw by throw.

You wear tights and a bikini, slinky thigh-high black leather boots, sex appeal.
I am the Lon Chaney of Browning’s “The Unknown”, replete with Romani scarf
and broad-brimmed hat, silver buttons on my waistcoat, though I do not sacrifice my arms.
We are not the sacrificial type, you and I. Though

Beauty and the Beast we are, a real crowd-pleaser,
even if we are never sure which of us is which.

We take our marks and let fly, the thunk of pointed steel into wood sounding our outlines.
Sometimes you first, sometimes me, sometimes the both of us, simultaneous.
Blindfolded sometimes, the crowd awe-hushed, the air a veritable cutting silence.

How violent the quiet can be.
Such practiced miscommunication.

Once, I nick your ear.
Your next pins my trousers.

We pause, check our marks, feel for muscle memory, visualize the end-over-end.
You select a blade, I clear the holster.
The show goes on. Kisses

we used to throw, to no applause. Words we threw,
to no effect. Vases, bowels, plates. Took it on the road,

tired of picking up the pieces. A. N. Other on the playbill, that’s you,
U. N. Owen, that’s me. Packed houses,

night after night. Matinees on Sundays. I think, sometimes,
what would happen if I took one step away from the X?
If I just ended it, one way or the other?

I assume you do, too.