after Frank Bidart They first come to me in waves of lilac frost, Soon I taste the salt. I fall into an endless pool of loden green. Night after night, I watch them march, This is the start of the universe— In my recollection are all the things I take a step & suddenly they empty When I wake up, 1 The phrases “drained spectres” and “yearning to the earth” both come from Frank Bidart’s “Guilty of Dust.” Anika Prakash is a senior in high school and the editor-in-chief of Red Queen Literary Magazine. Her poetry has been recognized by The Adroit Journal, Scholastic Art & Writing, and the Writers’ Theatre of New Jersey, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a Platypus Press anthology, Red Paint Hill, Noble Gas Qtrly, Hobart, The Ellis Review, and Glass, among others.
Dream Sequence with Drained Spectres1
balming the carpet until it is cold to my touch.
They call me friend, so I let them stay.
They lift me out, limb by limb,
inhabit me until my memory is dysmorphia,
until all I feel is yearning
to the earth.¹
their quick, even strides dizzying me
from within.
every origin theory begins with a pulse.
I press my foot to the ground & they scatter.
I’ve conveniently misplaced.
themselves, becoming apparitions of gold
glitter and dust before settling to the ground
in ceaseless fright—
I can feel something twinkling
at the edge of my memory.
About the Author
