On:

The Dandies’ first Christmas in Peacock Lane was the year the decorations came to life / The elves were the first to turn against their homes & scale attached garages & chain linked fences / They chanted dark poetry from the wires around their mouths / Reindeer who used toContinue Reading

On:

I should have known there was acatch. I thought my new husbandwas the catch, but that was before hetook me home to his dark house ofshadowy secrets, of strange pluckingsof the sleeve of my soul, of sudden clammycoldness creeping across my face the momentI set foot in the house he’dContinue Reading

On:

I type into the homunculus of steel;Sifted and grafted from the earth.It glints silver and black,Like the stars and darkness it once came from–Blinking in and out of existence.The stand has been like that for ages.I make a note to replace it soon.It’s the color of the sky outside theContinue Reading

On:

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 decorationContinue Reading

On:

Chapter 1: Concrete Poems on the theft of Euterpe’s Elixir The gods whispered inspiration through gilded corridors,and the students drank deeply of creation’s endless well.But one among them—Professor Moros—grew restless.He saw not a gift but a shackle,not a blessing but a barrier. Why should creativity bow to unseen hands?Why mustContinue Reading

On:

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 brittleContinue Reading

On:

The best friend a person has … is one who has just died.-Colonel Aureliano BuendíaThe Dandies used unflavored sparkling water to wash shaving cream from the bay window / They used a rhinestone encrusted seltzer siphon from a forgotten vaudeville act that closed long before prohibition & whistled show tunesContinue Reading

On:

Although you have diedI feel your touch in everyrain drop as ifyour tearson my living shouldersare leavesmeant to disappear or blow away.Your tearsstrike my silken umbrellalike angry fists because we are separated–I in this garden and you in the other. Lynette G. Esposito, MA Rutgers, has been published in PoetryContinue Reading

On:

When Grief moved in the only room The Dandies had available was the space under the roll top secretary that skipped generations just to live in the basement / An entire paycheck pushed the desk from one unfinished basement right into another & if it were up to Grief inContinue Reading

On:

It never rainsin the Gingerbread Forestbecause that would be catastrophic—houses turned to mush,the occupants smotheredbeneath a slurry of crumbled walls,delicious but deadly. You’d thinkthat endless sunshinewould be a lovely thing,but it’s not.Even filteredthrough leaves and branches,the light is too constant,too bright,too much. As for those trees,deprived of rainthey are forcedtoContinue Reading