Baby Geisha by Trinie Dalton

here. Instead of letting the landscape blur into green hilly strips, I focus my eyes on specific bloomers, following them the whole split second they’re in my view. This is how I hunt flowers while driving. If something looks peculiar, I’ll stop, reverse, and approach the plant to shoot a photo for later ID.
    My first stop is to investigate what might be a Fritillaria biflora patch one hill over. Chocolate lilies look a lot like tulips, so it makes sense that they’d be here. I exit the highway, but the off-ramp concludes into a vast lake: nowhere to go except in. I plunge, my engine dies, and I crack my door to leap out of the big rig before it’s submerged. I swim to shore and watch my vehicle sink into the blue lagoon. Refusing to drown in a truck. That’s why, to me, flowers are nightmarish roughage, though trucks still arouse me.

Murderine
    I’m a figurine representing a person about to get murdered, a cursed voodoo doll. A hand with red fingernails waves me around as a powerful talisman to worship and fondle. I’m an inanimate doll, not necessarily a woman, an animal, or a man, and that doesn’t matter. What matters is that my dress flaunts an empire waist, and that my long, resplendent hair is braided.

Opal
    With each sip of rose tea I take in this luxuriant bath, bubbles curl around my neck like a ruffled collar. The bubbles are lace, folding in and out into infinity like elegant costuming that transformed 16th century queens into birds of paradise. Tipping my mug back, I arch my eyebrows upwards pretending they’re drawn on with grease pencil. In my mandarin collar with Dietrich brows, I also envision my lips over-painted past their lip lines with burgundy pencil. I wear, in this high tea bath, feather-toed slippers, a topaz brooch, a six-carat brilliant cut sapphire ring, and my golden hair is pin-curled up with opal barrettes. Fiery pink cabochons welded onto slender silver clips. My cat bats a half-dead mouse around the cat claw bathtub.

Boot Stomper
    I’m the kind of snowflake who likes to be the last one clinging, crunchy and die-hard. I’m not delicate; my crystalline features are not the most quixotic, but at least I won’t melt the second I hit earth. If I had feet, I’d kick tires to show how tough I can whack that rubber. Take me to the saloon and slip me into your drink. Flip my icy hair around like a whip. Pretend I’m a parrot and let me ride on your shoulder.
    My snowflake pals are out of town and this village is a muddy mess.
    â€œWe’re stuck in a mud bog,” a woman says, wiping mud cakes off her boots. I’d clean her boots if I could; I’d frost them then melt, make her boot soles sparkle and shine. I watch her boots from the sidelines, hoping she’ll stomp my curb next.

Shellevision
    I live in a spiral conch, and I hate my name. It’s too obvious—yeah, I live in a seashell. Living in shells on this beach to
either side of me are fifteen other Shelleys who feel the same way. Why did all the shell dwellers who got pregnant in 1970 name their spawn Shelley? My mom must have been a member of the local Venus cult. On my one-inch mother-of-pearl shellevision, I watch crustaceous programming while administering elaborate manicures to my microscopic fingernails. This delicate box, powered by sample-perfume-vial-sized tube amps, has screened all the famous Shelley’s, from Shelley Duvall to Shell Silverstein, who kids call Shelley. I admire watching these calciferous celebrities, but I’d rather perfect the application of teeny decals to my nails. Over three coats of high gloss enamel, for example, I prefer pinstripes to glitter dolphins.

Cruising: A Postcard Exchange
    To: Looking for someone to love, You are so hot~!
    From: OK I love you but you remind me of a skunk, or a spelunker. What. Are you a furry or… ?
    To: Yeah I wear animal costumes, so?
    From: I just love skunks so much. Do you want to hook