My skin crawled off me onto the washing room’s tile floor, then skittered up the wall.

Nimia pulled her body along the underground tunnel with her muscled arms, one grip at a time. She passed the pods where other Pullers, like herself, worked, their hands plugged into the company interface.

I have encountered Conquest /
A herald seraphim /
A harbinger of sacred fervor /
Wrapped all up in righteous sins /

Let’s talk about science fictional concepts. Imagine a Utopian world where all creatives like writers get paid fairly for their labor. 

We point at a field of cows as we pass and say “Cows,” for as everyone knows, the bovine population has a deal with all travelers. 

She could see the ones that had come before her, and after, that had perched in the chair in the waiting room of the auto dealer shop. They superimposed over her body like layers of frosting on a cake, a finger here, a curly bit of hair there.

Poppy rambled along the highway, nodding to the bunches of Queen Anne’s lace on the road’s shoulder. They bobbed back to her, the legged flora goddess; she who had pert yellow lips and red limbs to fold up at night.

What if all the stars worked a 9-5 with-
out healthcare or matching 401(k)s?
Would they shine so bright or
their long light arms reach Earth?

Elsie skipped over the bridge in the yard, the tiny thing constructed for rabbits and mice. She pinwheeled to a stop, then dashed back over it and told her mother about the ‘black fairies’ she’d found.

Lobsters don’t die from old age /
They just get tired of moulting and shouldering /
All the necessary sadness a being needs /
To move from shell to shell /

The tally-marked stop sign waited at the top of the Frankfurt street hill. Six tally marks. Police had tried cleaning them off and had even replaced the stop sign at one point, but the marks always reappeared.

The cicadas sizzled in the summer afternoon, spiraling in an erratic murmuration through the yard, and Fen dropped her sidewalk chalk to cover her ears.

The sky rotated into a yellow-green, the kind where the sun strove to shine through. Cindy stayed out in the yard. Her son texted hide in the basement! A siren wailed through the empty street. But Cindy waited. 

For our part, we love being discovered. Frieda matches us with the perfect reader, that one who holds us with interest and turns our pages with excitement. Sometimes, that person comes back to read us again, and again — for, of course, they can’t take us out of the café. 

The butterfairies and the ring-tailed dragons fled first. They buttoned up their fairy coats and looped scarves around their rings and traveled far, far into the North.

The crimson leaf pile near the street drain /
Has a picture of reasons for you to skip down the walk /

A phantom muscle in my brain /
Works on weekends and overtime /
To convince me that I’m imminent /
Just that, imminent /

Our heads house living things /
Dreams born and buried as we sleep /

Fireflies, wandering eyes /
Blinking through the popular trees /

The cicada killers drone in the park /
Small rockets /
A display of gold in the sky /