STEPHANIE ANDERSON
from THE DITTIES
In the dream, detective work. Spring comes quick; clay on my shoes and candied orange. Last night we drew the curtains, but he woke anyway.
Her voice was filtered by a drunken robot. I gave her fish face and she stuck out her tongue. Be hands be at quest hall. Don’t answer.
Ten keys are in the weather. It must be bushwhack day. What did you see. Idiot, says the crow. Drums, birds, sirens, wind in the trees.
A seed on a string, a red fungus. It’s a way of standing out to not be seen. I haven’t looked at my face in days, he says.
Setting up for doll floating day. All the thrushes and the turtles. These ducks are fond of climbing, singing Mandarin battle songs.
Blankets seems in style. Exile tribe perfect year 2014. I’m taken with apple mints and an eyelash salon. How short?
Double robes and tiny TVs. I’ve travelled back in time with my headskin. Bear up, he says, the burn and a blurry chandelier.
He took away my bangs, back clenched. Thousand pocket thread texture of curiosity. Red plastic for English homework, knee socks.
Fire work on the menu at orderly; skirt steak on sprouts. Counters change with physical aspects of things. Two cylinders, please.
One two itchy knee. He’s not wearing his shoe-backs. Earth music and ecology is skinny jeans. I went to foxy college.
Cellar three was storehouse. His cap in place, chipping ice with pick. Maybe there will be more mammoths. She’s cool with littleneck clams.
He’s giving precise oyster temps, Herr Baron Fahrenheit. The dragonfly balances on its nose. One fellow is so forlorn.
from THE DITTIES
In the dream, class conflict. Good relation on HMS fish, Thai smile, Cambodian pumpkin. It’s a strange lurch, a catch to there.
Lean-to’s draped in blue tarp by the river. I’m looking for a petit terrace. Green roof red roof orange roof blue roof. How do they live.
Taking the train to daylight, an apartment building keeps repeating. The history of peasant pilgrimages. Angle sea.
Little garden, lala garden. Every Wednesday is thanks day and I wear my tourist boots. Hang up your coveralls in the sun.
Supports for an invisible expressway. Three greys and a raised graveyard; big mountains behind little ones. Some parts getting green.
Sleeping snow and the train splits, technology to our future. Ginger soda drink has soft stimulants and tofu skin is sweet.
Still tingling from green peppercorns. Enjoy doll day, he says, look to the second floor. Frothy green tea to turn, a pointy spoon.
Clouds life enough to see the top. I pick up every plate and every piece of pottery. Not bound feet but black teeth, ash and lye.
Fresh tatami smell. Arrow to abyss, illuminate every. Mossy buddhas, branch-muted snow. Statues start to disappear.
Player special upside-down, poem-ordered alphabet. Historical remains deeply winning road, fourteen, digging for gold.
Stone cups at the gutter, then a roadside goldfish tank and black kites above. Inside, a lacquered ladybug on the white evening.
Did you just shelf yourself? The moon a dainty blinding slip – this is the monk’s diet. It’s not dualism. The streets are paved with cheese.
Woodsmoke carried on the cold and then unraveled in hot water. Futon settled and far apart. Orion muted out there.
from THE DITTIES
Dreaming tracking shooting galaxies. A coatless day, palatial with good coffee smile and swans. Bundled forms sprawled out on the grass.
They burn the imperial trash at sea. Comme ça ism in the cultures theater, flowers wired onto trees. Clicks of coins, sticks.
A goddess ascended today. The endless wave since 1971 we are surfing, a golden dragon machine formed.
Radish bloom aiming to become a king of refresh. This time the least fortune. Open windows and wine in the early evening.
Vodka with veggies. He flamethrows fish at the constellation of grain heads. We’d like the salad to go. The word she’d never say.
Stephanie Anderson is the author of In the Key of Those Who Can No Longer Organize Their Environments (Horse Less Press) and Variants on Binding (forthcoming, National Poetry Review Press). Her most recent chapbooks are Sentence, Signal, Stain (Greying Ghost) and the forthcoming LIGHTBOX (The New Megaphone). She lives in Chicago and edits Projective Industries.