Parade

Parade

by Zella Christensen

They are tying your shoes for you
They are putting you in your box
          they are carrying you past the river
          they are carrying you down the shore
Their tails are not wagging
Their tails are cramped beneath their suits

They are licking the rain off their noses
They are tasting their tears on their noses
          they are saying, "It's just the rain"
                    to each other
          they are not saying,
                    "I mourn"
They are as faithful as dogs come

They will wait by your grave for ten years
For ten years, they will starve by your grave
          eating the grass till they are sick
          when they are sick, whimpering on the grass

          your last dream was of a parade of dogs
          dogchildren eating ice cream
          dogclowns stumbling on stilts
          dogfathers and dogmothers holding dogbabies' paws

They are putting you in earth
They are putting you, and your strange dreams, in earth

* * * 

Zella Christensen is a writer from Wisconsin currently studying at George Mason University in Virginia. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Strange Horizons, New Myths, and Nailpolish Stories.

What do you think is the attraction of the fantasy genre? 

For me, fantasy in poetry is a way to capture ideas and emotions symbolically--to use concrete, if extraordinary, images to name things that are unnameable in any language other than the fantastic.