The Dandies almost ran a clean campaign against the chairwoman of the decoration subcommittee / They handed out red white & blue roses with little life hacks written around the stems like spells / Carry a pinch of salt in your back pocket for good luck & say aloud the names of your grandmothers / Rub aloe on your scalp after an upheaval for revival & bury a leek in the backyard the next time it rains / The neighborhood collected these roseate lessons & stuffed them in the bottom of their pockets like fortunes from fortune cookies or old lottery tickets scratched into oblivion / Steer clear of train tracks on Wednesdays & toss a penny into the next fountain you pass / Retire excuses with yesterday’s wind & recite backwards the numbers you hated as a child / The Dandies filled the neighborhood with enough tiny spells to buttress a book of common prayer / It was a challenge for the chairwoman of the decoration subcommittee to rebuke such a charming campaign / The Dandies had shown everyone very briefly in kindness what years of torment from a sparkly gavel could not give / Their words stitched back together a kind of fondness for the unseen Peacock Lane held onto only in dreams / The Dandies won their HOA election by a landslide because of their roses & the stand they took against the subcommittee’s stale right hand & became the new co-chairs of the decoration subcommittee / The Stranger walked Mrs. Peacock Lane home after it was all over to make her some tea & offered to help her play nice with the neighbors / If you treat every decoration like it’s a Christmas decoration & every neighborhood like a tourist destination then everything will come with its own joy.
Leave out a tin of fish & hope the cats come back | The End
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.
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