I don’t want to have a dream kitchen
(except I do and the counters are soapstone
because I remember them from sophomore chem
and you can’t really burn them; they want oil)
We were supposed to get bigger dreams: space,
Telepathy, a goddamn pair of wings. Clockless time.
We’re supposed to meet our idols and find out
They are vastly impressed by us and also,
She’s a good kisser and he thinks those boots
Are to die for. I’m content and I know it,
Except for worries and those aren’t going anywhere—
When I wake up in the veined night, I’ll start thinking
Of tomorrow, which is today, and whether the bananas
Have become too ripe. Too sweet, past making bread.
I’m holding out (for more)
Daisy Bassen is a poet and practicing physician who graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program and completed her medical training at The University of Rochester and Brown. Her work has been published in Oberon, McSweeney’s, The Sow’s Ear, and [PANK], as well as multiple other journals. She was a semi-finalist in the 2016 Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry and the winner of the So to Speak 2019 Poetry Contest, the 2019 ILDS White Mice Contest, and the 2020 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize. She was doubly nominated for the 2019 and 2021 Best of the Net Anthology and for a 2019 and 2020 Pushcart Prize. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.