Dear Doppelganger, and: Dorothy Arnold’s Fever Dream, 1909
- Dear Doppelganger, and: Dorothy Arnold’s Fever Dream, 1909
Dear Doppelganger
dear gone-ahead girl, dear darling echo, dear wolf-howl. Dear cracked mirror, dear lightning strike, dear marvelous sprawl, dear lost sock. Dear phantom limb, dear itch in my ear, dear tiny pebble in my shoe. You magpie, you rat in the wall, you have-to-have. They tell me you’re bad luck, marauder walking early across my grave. But dear hand-me-down party dress, dear unstitched silhouette, dear divisible sister, I know better. Each evening I lunge from the lip of my bedroom window and sing to you a serenade in reverse. My voice like that scratchy music on the car radio, melody bitter as burnt chiffon, a song about all the bad places I hope we’ll meet. [End Page 112]
Dorothy Arnold’s Fever Dream, 1909
I wake fevered with freedom and stumble out stain-mouthed into the sea. Not really. Forgive me, I was up late, reading Homer and I got carried away. Mother says too much learning makes me indiscreet. My lips are stained with ink and I can sing you this song in six languages but that doesn’t keep me from knowing that the word woman is useless in every single one. Nightingale, mockingbird, parlor trick. It’s exhausting, being looked at all the time. Being kept. [End Page 113]
Britt Ashley is a queer femme from Texas who makes poems and biscuits. Her poetry and artwork has appeared or is forthcoming in juked, Winter Tangerine Review, The Offing and elsewhere.
