This week's feature is Pushcart-nominated poet, Francesca Leader, whose powerful words have been widely published. Today, please enjoy "The White Dream" (with first publish credits to Frost Meadow Review) and "Treat My Body Like an International House of Pancakes" (with first publish credits to Beatnik Cowboy). Thank you, Francesca, for sharing your work!
The White Dream
a child in her sleep,
(the path ragged with ice)
crashing in snow,
chasing bird tracks
and gasping up the tree-frost haze.
then you are there, parting a screen of lacquer-red branches,
bare-faced in a smiling cloud of hot breath,
a halo of winter air;
our skates skittering, jet-streaming
on the minarets of bubbles in the pond eye,
black under-foot sky,
the earth of earthless beings;
we are so light, like ghosts, all soul
and no human weight;
and we laugh at our mutant mitten hands flopping
like paws on the bank when we tumble.
at night, in cabin light, the frozen dark bruises
will show in our skin, like ponds under ice.
but already, I sense the thaw of waking . . .
I will, with the dream’s power,
the next drift to cover my eyes,
to keep the white spell from lifting.
(the path ragged with ice)
crashing in snow,
chasing bird tracks
and gasping up the tree-frost haze.
then you are there, parting a screen of lacquer-red branches,
bare-faced in a smiling cloud of hot breath,
a halo of winter air;
our skates skittering, jet-streaming
on the minarets of bubbles in the pond eye,
black under-foot sky,
the earth of earthless beings;
we are so light, like ghosts, all soul
and no human weight;
and we laugh at our mutant mitten hands flopping
like paws on the bank when we tumble.
at night, in cabin light, the frozen dark bruises
will show in our skin, like ponds under ice.
but already, I sense the thaw of waking . . .
I will, with the dream’s power,
the next drift to cover my eyes,
to keep the white spell from lifting.
Treat My Body Like an International House of Pancakes
Pretend the pages of my menu are sticky
and you don’t care why,
don’t give one single fuck
about hygiene
because you know what you came for,
and you’re
starving.
Make me feel as good
as on those all-night college nights
imbibing bottomless coffees
and secondhand smoke that smelled
like love,
one plate of hashbrowns split
five ways.
Flip me.
Bite me.
Soak me in syrup, baby--
You, of all people,
should know
what I like.
and you don’t care why,
don’t give one single fuck
about hygiene
because you know what you came for,
and you’re
starving.
Make me feel as good
as on those all-night college nights
imbibing bottomless coffees
and secondhand smoke that smelled
like love,
one plate of hashbrowns split
five ways.
Flip me.
Bite me.
Soak me in syrup, baby--
You, of all people,
should know
what I like.
Francesca Leader is a self-taught, Pushcart-nominated writer originally from Western Montana. Her poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction have appeared in, or are forthcoming from Wigleaf, HAD, Barren, Milk Candy Review, Fictive Dream, JMWW, Mom Egg Review, Literary Mama, Stanchion, Door Is a Jar, Nixe's Mate, and elsewhere. Learn more at inabucketthemoon.wordpress.com.