The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Lucy Ives’ “Orange Roses”

Beastgardens

First Garden

Beastgarden.

Second Garden

Bees go mad on late summer evenings, should
People stray from their jobs towards water

Beastgarden.

Third Garden

Who makes the rented red boat’s
Oars turn

Who is the younger one always
Turning up

Who professes to be better because
He is just looking

Who says he is worse off as
He cannot look

Beastgarden.

Fourth Garden

The unicycle girl, thin
Like one with a sexual problem,
Goes through
The Schlosspark. This follows:
Father rolling his eyes

Beastgarden.

Fifth Garden

The man from Manchester
Has my breast in his hand

These are funny
They don’t do anything do they

Being burnt by a fire I say

Beastgarden.

Sixth Garden

Similarly, if only
You grasped some
Titanic misery or a
Love like an old man’s

Beastgarden.

 

Seventh Garden

Where were we

A ballroom competition goes on
A yellow satin bikini
A fuchsia floor-length are
Dancing; an audience is
Drinking, clapping 1 2 3 1 2 3

Beastgarden.

—

This selection comes from Lucy Ives’ book Orange Roses, available from Ahsahta Press. Purchase your copy here!

Lucy Ives was born in New York City in 1980, received an AB, magna cum laude, from Harvard College, an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and is currently completing a PhD in comparative literature at New York University. She has lived outside the U.S. for extended periods in Hirosaki, Japan, and Paris and has studied French, German, Greek, Japanese, and Latin, among other languages. A deputy editor with Triple Canopy, the arts magazine and publisher, Ives continues to live in New York.

Darren C. Demaree is the author of three poetry collections, As We Refer to Our Bodies (2013, 8th House), Temporary Champions (2014, Main Street Rag), and Not For Art For Prayer (2015, 8th House). He is the recipient of three Pushcart Prize nominations and a Best of the Net nomination. He is also a founding editor of Ovenbird Poetry and AltOhio. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.