Algae Gatsby
seeks calcified mollusk head
in the key lime lite-brites.
the sugar dish filled with she-kelp
won the cruise beauty pageant
by a buttered waterslide—
!!!!! Miss 120,000 Gross
Tonnes of Extra Strength Steel !!!!!
Ma’amemoiselle’s a Hudson Harbour,
to-be Depression cake debutante,
Atlantic Ocean heiress
on the seahorse polo team.
he’s all lemons and cuttlefish eyes
livin on Squid Roe. he neons salt,
a neckshot nibbling wet waffle cones
waterlogged baseball skins
the coral in the sugar dish
swallowed used cucumber slices
and a pair of at-sea ice skates
!!!!! Miss Paraffin Wax
Activity Deck Shuffle Board !!!!!
Miss Ma’amemoiselle
remember him tentacled,
a sugarcube buoy, barnacling
her gel nail dinghy
to sealocked Vígríðr
til he mucus bullets,
goes full conch
—gets prohibition squishcaught
in the glowstick netting,
minnowmirrored and goldlured
against the day’s eye deep
Edith Massey Brought Potato Salad On The Ferris Wheel
crucifixation on the blue boo
jaunty wall knives go sugar spun
hitchhiking hot wagon nuclear
a a a love letter dream sequence
itsnowonder the SnoWonder Queen
leaves no teeth or teddyshadow
since she actually fucks in lace
cracking fingers cleared for liftoff
she’s That Same Bitch
but does a bitch stay the same?
is a bitch a constant? or do we
conjugate a bitch and leave
the stem untouched?
wha’ever it is,
just go
mow the gaptooth lawn
punk the sod into an alibi
wear out your eyes
before the tartan eggscrambles
into grand greatmother
stymied against the ken,
sucker
for the dreamland
instant snow
A note on "Edith Massey:" this piece is an ekphrastic response to Chicago, Illinois, fibre artist Kate Luther's "Lois Rogers: The Same Bitch from Last Time," which I will link here if readers would like to look at the piece for reference. Her website is katelutherart.com and her instagram is @katelutherart. We have been given permission by Kate to include the image that inspired this poem below, she retains all rights to the image.
Jillian A. Fantin is an MFA candidate at the University of Notre Dame. They received a 2021 Poet Fellowship from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and their poetry has been published in The American Journal of Poetry, Sprung Formal, TIMBER, Entropy, and elsewhere. She is @jilly_stardust on Twitter and @jillystardust on Instagram