After Gertrude Stein
A CURL OF HAIR AFLOATED.
A man with eyes that goes by the pronouns she her and his. The staring of a fellow student in the class at a drifting curl as the thing is made perfect for drawing and brown leather boots. A professor in voice all composed as people are of lines and red-orange oranges, and seaweed. Underneath a surface nothing floats and everything else sinks. A merman at the dinner table, drinking tea, smiles nervous.
A TURTLENECK.
A pair of shoes made of paper that hide the feet, except for the cup of tea, instead. A boots black pair of sturdy hats with feathers sticking out in every unseeable direction, except west. A pair of feet dig into the glass of a bathroom pink table and converse with it, happy to find another English major in the building.
It is necessary to speak one cup of coffee louder than is usually expected, in order to avoid finding one’s self being mistaken for a ballpoint pen. It is necessary yes to speak three exact times exactly within a given class of a room, if only to remember sweetly bread.
TEMPERATURE.
Holding a hand just below the breast one can figure the name for a new pet.
BITING.
Three hands all touching at the tips and sighing like birds. A rough edge hurts one using to write a rough edge given the pressing of paper into whorls. It is easiest to write poems when bleeding, given the number of hours in a candle.
A FAVORITE ROCK.
Which one? Everything in a party is so vastly together. A man with pebbles rather than the usual three four hands with which one usually drinks cups of strawberry milk from the freezer. A man with sand in the shoes that he holds in his static, or tragedied heart. Or a man, really, too good for hearts or souls; he keeps on the nightstand in his office a favorite sphere, and throws it quite often out the window, or through walls. Biting one’s nails to the point of freezing the body is no good; it is necessary to consume.
A PENCIL.
Care must be taken, in order that reading poems the table will not cave as they do in Oklahoma.
AN AROMANTICISM.
In order to understand a difficult novel that concerns philosophy, glasses and the like, the recipient of a bright and café sandwich should consider writing a poem from skirts. Only upon sitting will true understanding of any small blue thing be dropped. In order to write from shoes the proper paper for a given class, students should consume rich foods, the rich in their gardens, or Adrienne Rich. In order to properly sketch in writing a hole, one must knock; if no man answers, he is maybe having sex, or sex is busy hiding all of his oranges, or he is away and on a date in the middle of a large ring, considering.
A RAISED HAND.
Wondering, a song, a cup of coffee constructed, apples.
Weeds with yellow heads that whisper into heels and consume with joy one’s essays.
White, but shadowed.
Uncertainty, and the color violet, which teaches wonderful classes. A correction of spelling that indicates the name of the critic to be Jack, not Judith. The latter is a made-up word, like carnation, and green carpeting in kitchens.
A BOTTLE OF NIGHTSTAND.
One candle must needs be lit every hour until the desired effect is obtained, which is strumming.
A PIN.
The most beneficial skill for men in baseball leagues is the ability to sew. The best kind of father is one who knits hats, walks quiet in the grass and kisses men. The best kind of father wears the shape of joy on his jacket in order that other strangers will drink it as tea. His hair curls as one’s fingers do when writing a poem that contains the word oranges, or Ireland.
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Constance Bougie has their bachelor’s in English with focuses in creative writing and asexuality studies. They are currently a grad student at the University of Missouri with focuses in Modernist literatures, asexualities and aromanticisms, and animal studies. Find them online at https://cpbwrites.wordpress.com/ and @5tephendeadalu5.