Dandies moved into Peacock Lane & put a sexy leg lamp in their postage stamp bay window / The HOA was pissed but could hardly do a thing to stop gentlethems from erecting sexuality like a lacy middle finger / The chairwoman of the decoration subcommittee made salted pistachio brittle with black truffle oil to bribe her way to a quorum during an emergency session / Mrs. Peacock Lane was embroidered on a sash strung across a pink pantsuit worn while ranting about the state of her neighborhood & the rockabilly wannabes vaping electric lettuce from Hawthorne Avenue parklets where baby Haydens & Harpers doodle in back issues of Tin House & Kitchen Sink / As if strangers in top hats were to blame for the very gentrification that afforded her a brownstone twenty years ago / The Dandies applauded her misguided passion but assured everyone that they learned fisticuffs from the wives of men who pee standing up / No one was about to bully them into packing away campy Americana that was stylized to be framed in lattice / The Dandies sang for us their patter songs about men who blow into towns to challenge the status quo / A lone rabbit goes unchecked for days before there’s a network of passages connecting everyone’s gardens / A bright red Prius christened The Scarlet Pimpernel was packed with paperbacks & fled from Midwestern Misogyny faster than light ignited by a firefly / The Dandies sang as well as they dressed accenting the narrative with calligraphic charm / The war began Monday morning / Someone had drawn a curtain in shaving cream over the leg lamp / Mrs. Peacock Lane stood across the street smirking in pink yoga pants & sipped cranberry La Croix.
Help The Dandies clean their window
Let the rain wash away the shaving cream overnight
RJ Equality Ingram works as a used bookseller for Goodwill Industries of the Columbia Willamette. Their first collection of poetry The Autobiography of Nancy Drew is forthcoming from White Stag Publishing in early 2024. RJ received their MFA in creative writing from Saint Mary’s College of California with concentrations in poetry & creative nonfiction. More work can be found in Phoebe Journal, Miniskirt Magazine & Citron Review among others. RJ’s cat Brenda lost a leg designing her memory palace.