Gene Hult 
Catfish and After 

I can’t prove anything he says.

Some cyber-psychos deliberately deceive. Catfish is a long poem about being in love with an ideal but fraudulent man on a chat app. After is an imagist cycle of poetry about psychic, creative, and romantic reconstruction in the aftermath.

Scrolling through mug shots

and search results,

failing to track down

traces of something true.

My buspirone stops sustaining.

Voices on repeat,

phrases of paranoia,

tapping at the Persian

like tongue on infected tooth.

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