Dreamscape as something I forgot to name
Callan Foster
Do you have my lighter?
/I pat my breast pocket like I would a child’s head/
You know I once knew a girl with a mouth full of eyes.
No really. I did.
& when she spoke she saw everything.
No really. Everything.
The neighbor bathing in the house next door.
The basket of bread mealing in the dumpster.
The fucking.
Always the fucking and fucking and fucking. Stop.
A time lapsed bean sprout birthing itself through bitter soil. Stop.
Is dust profound?
Then let me be dust. Is craft profound?
Then let me be a pair of scissors lost in the bottom of a book bag.
Maybe I just need a mango. A refresh button. A plum-yellow restart.
Memory as bathroom tile grout. Memory as slinkies
in
a stairwell. Stop.
Look. Out there. No, to your left.
An orange desert. Empty turtle shells rattle
the horizon like bits of glass—
See it?
There’s a slot machine.
Full of cherries.
Full of blue birds.
Full of number sevens and a still-warm tongue.
Come on now. Peel back your lips. Let me see.
/A purple fruit drops. Black seeds. White pith. Cracked open./
Callan Foster is a lesbian poet and high school librarian. She lives in Seattle with her cat, Ralph. You can find her other work in Homology Lit, Variant Literature, and Coffin Bell, among others.