may dreamed she was inside of a big building. like an indoor high
school but a town with normal non-fluorescent lighting and ponds
with ducks in them in every room. may was supposed to mail a letter.
it was important. she couldn’t remember where the post office was.
may went to the dentist and found a cat whisker. may made a wish
and burned the whisker for good luck.
may circled the same pond twice. may went home and there were
five washing machines in her living room. may looked at herself in
the mirror in the bathroom. she thought she looked hot. she thought
she wouldn’t worry about the letter. she thought about the rat from her
first apartment. the rat she had loved from the window before he came
inside. may took a bath and the water turned into a duck pond. may
thought she could still love the rat. even if he didn’t shouldn’t love her
back.
EATING HONEY OUT OF THE JAR AT THE KITCHEN TABLE
SQUASH/SQUISH
claire says the first graders already knew the creeks are underground.
jasper catches a lizard just to catch, just to hold in his mouth. just to hold in his
mouth. i say i love the cold just to say it, just to love it.
the gender options on the fingerprint website are: woman, woman impersonator,
man, man impersonator.
claire begs for a home that will bake them. roast them from all directions. in july,
the cottage is an oven. three fans and three windows are not enough. we lie
down on the floor and sizzle. sizzle. we lie down on the floor and sizzle.
the man cracks the glass like an egg, like a joke. slams the trunk again and again.
it shatters like blue.
we find the peacock street on accident the first time. hit a deadend and stay,
anyways, stumble into a childhood fantasy and a peacock named pete in a tree.
in claire’s stolen car we find an eyebrow pencil and a notebook with two questions
in it: how can you tell how someone else is feeling? how can you tell if something
is good or bad? the advice from a horse mug is gone.
PRINTER JAM/PRINTER CLOG/ TOILET CLOG/ FROZEN STRAWBERRY JAM
at my partner's lesbian cousin's baby shower, my partner's lesbian
cousin's brother-in-law says he understands why the game where
you chug beer out of baby bottles is popular at co-ed baby showers.
because, you know, he says. men want to drink beer and suck on
nipples. i think about pointing out that my partner's lesbian cousin's
wife, his sister-in-law, might also like those things. i consider, but do
not consider telling him, that i like half of them.
an imaginary memory in the sand dunes. a fruit salad abandoned
on the bus.
in my dream, in a mall/underground conference center, in a big room
after the shallow dirt and the bus and the wide roads and the river,
uma says i am like a boy in the ways that matter. i hug her close to
me and want to cry.
Clara Sperow (she/they) is a Pisces writer, multimedia artist, baker, student, and educator. She holds a BA in English & Creative Writing from UC Berkeley, and she is currently earning her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University, where she is an Assistant Poetry Editor for 14 Hills. Their work can be found in The Berkeley Poetry Review, The Ana, Silver Operation, and Bullshit Lit.