The Dandies dream of velvet top hats & monocles dangling from golden chains with their hands stuffed in their pockets & piles of candy wrappers on their bedside tables / Pocket watches unwind themselves inside the forest of waistcoats that line their walk-in closet / The chairwoman of the decoration subcommittee dreams in Ovaltine infomercials with her thumb glued to the mute button & face covered in aloe & sugar scrubs / She dreams of the kind of peace that extinguishes itself when a child’s ball gets tossed into the wrong yard or a dog from an unknown pedigree decides to pee behind a stranger’s blue recycling bin / The neighborhood sleeps off a collective hangover the way homework assignments riddle themselves out the minute children put away their pens / The van parked outside the corner lot reeks of marijuana & tequila bottles that were finished off years ago / No one knows who the van belongs to but everyone has decided to wait for someone else to take initiative & address it / The sexy leg lamp sleeps standing up perched in her window & dreams of eating corndogs while rollerskating above the ocean / Her last perch overlooked a boardwalk where grandparents would entertain children over bushels of cotton candy & barrels of pink lemonade / Something should be said about taffy pullers keeping the local dentist office operating that isn’t / The constellation above Peacock Lane dreams of an ancient magic lost to time but not forgotten / A young man rides to town on a pale horse & waits for rain to catch up to him / He takes off his hat only to the trappings that may bind him / He waits for The Dandies to awake before knocking on their door.
Invite the stranger inside
Close the door & refuse him entry
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.