Caiden Feldmiller

Applied Fantastic

               after Paulina Olowska's Chess Player 1

She steals all she is

given: gold curves, gold

scarves, away from her

spatial advantage

of Harrwitz bishops

with a brief message

for the Eastern Bloc.

"In times when there is

hardly anything

in stores to buy, you

can create an out-

fit from hand-me-downs

or your grandparents'

closet." Buttons and

tinsel hang from the

breast of her sweater

like the norigae

of tissue-paper

and cardstock cut-outs

of pomegranates

you taped to the girl

in the library.

Dean Young’s Piñata

The process is

the poet’s strange

contraption. What

but syntax, song,

and pop awaits

between paper-

mâché and his

balloon approx-

imately dol-

phin? Pop! A some-

times stranger’s eyes

above his win-

dow box of dewed

delphiniums!

His scuba fins!

A fusillade

of bats provokes

his “fusillade

of bats,” while kids

behind the tree

choke up for e-

ven faster swings.

Bio

Caiden Feldmiller is the author of the chapbook Pig, Smoking (Saddle Road Press, 2013). He lives in Pittsburgh, PA.