Psychic Crush of the Week

by Dorothy Chan

I have crushes on girls who are psychic,
because I’m drawn to the beauty of knowing
everything, and it’s fun knowing everything,

isn’t it, honey? I see you right there seeing right
through me, and I’ll admit I want to be psychic
too, join you as the Psychic Girl of the Week—

Psychic Girl of Your Dreams, and I wonder if
the Eastern Zodiac can help me get there—
my Year of the Snake compatible with Oxen

and Dragons and especially Roosters, and why’d
it have to be the cock, anyway? How overrated,
and we all know that nothing beats a woman’s

touch, a woman’s kisses, a woman’s neck, and
my fantasies with women are always much more
elaborate, like piles of pastries in Rococo rooms

with floral wallpaper and a million camera angles
and a canopy bed as we strip each other—vanilla
éclairs and opera cakes and raspberry tarts and pink

soufflés and strawberry cream puffs and green apple
and orange blossom macarons: this erotic fashion
show I once dreamt of when I was a girl pulling up

lace thigh highs, or the first time I kissed another
woman in my bed, telling her to use less tongue,
because I wanted more intimacy—less playfulness,

a little more, and studies show that luxury is often
associated with women, and I think about how in
simulation games, my lead female role always falls

for another woman, and they move into a mansion
filled with Victorian busts and Vanitas still lifes
and human-sized bird cages, mimicking the fantasy

I had last night when my dream and I kissed
in the antechamber, and she carried me, proceeding
to ask which room I’d love most to make love in,

and we chose the smallest one, because I liked
the royal blue couch and Tiffany green pillows
and the peacock feathers all over, and wouldn’t it

be funny to make love in a wine cellar or a broom
closet or a pantry, and let’s get a snack in between
sessions, maybe some creamed cookies or cereal

with marshmallows or something hot and spicy—
I’ll feed you if you feed me—but this was all sweet
dreams last night, and now I think back to college

when my best friend and I wrote porn together:
characters who could remove their heads, characters
in masks, characters that transformed into mermaids

in the shower, and centaurs, and monsters from
a more beautiful Earth—everything under the moon
you could possibly think of, but I never called her again

because we didn’t share the same fantasy. I never called
her again because we didn’t share the same fantasy,
and all dreams come to an end, as I wake up, now

trying to hold onto the lover in the royal blue room
with its exotic plants and clam-shaped chairs, like
Hollywood starlet makes love to Hollywood starlet,

and look dear, a peacock, a bouquet of hydrangeas,
a philosopher’s bust, a trophy filled with cream puffs,
and a lady centaur storms right in, and I’m kissing you,

and look, the wallpaper grew an eye, a cheetah dances,
the cabbage roses bloom, and we share a macaron
as you read my mind—we’re never moving out.

Dorothy Chan is the author of Revenge of the Asian Woman (Diode Editions 2019), Attack of the Fifty-Foot Centerfold (Spork Press 2018), and the chapbook Chinatown Sonnets (New Delta Review 2017). She was a 2020 and 2014 finalist for the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship, a 2020 finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Poetry for Revenge of the Asian Woman, and a 2019 recipient of the Philip Freund Prize in Creative Writing from Cornell University. Her work has appeared in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. She is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Poetry Editor of Hobart, Book Reviews Co-Editor of Pleiades, and Founding Editor and Editor in Chief of Honey Literary. Visit her website at dorothypoetry.com