Lungs distend –
A magic trick.
Laid out flat
Like phosphate.
Brains condensed,
Taut as lipstick.
Mind read
In thirty seconds.
Pull my finger,
Watch it trigger
My body to explode.
Detonate my soul and fake
My entrails and my toes.
Eyes and earlobes
Effervescent.
Cock and balls
Still adolescent.
Facial hair
Still prepubescent;
See them instantly grow!
Sawn in half,
A torso.
Blood, sinew and bone.
Pick a card with your elbow,
And scowl with your kneecaps blown.
Illusion, confusion and obfuscation.
I pout with my mouth in mystification.
But when the heart is the only organ left
I try not to trick.
Sleight of sight,
A rapid-fire liver.
Nerves of steel on the guillotine
Start to quiver,
And tendons snap in the Chinese finger trap
Of the alcohol-addled magic hat,
And the wand that absconded a long time ago,
Now a shrivelled bunched up handkerchief.
My final trick was the finest trick
Of catching a bullet between my teeth,
But without an assistant
I was dead in an instant
And my final organ beat its final beat.
Pick a card.
Pick a number.
Please, just speak to me.
A trick’s no trick when the
Audience sticks to the
Shadows, prepared for retreat.
Kevin Fullerton is a Scottish writer who tries his hand at pretty much anything, from poetry to prose, scripts to articles. He is currently a full-time copywriter and is working on a novel in any spare moment he has free.
Eunoia Review 