SurVision Magazine
An international online magazine
that publishes Surrealist poetry in English.
Issue Fifteen
F. J. BERGMANN
Elsewhere Condition
You were only going to look for a moment,
you promised yourself.
Behind you, the door closed itself quietly
and locked with a snicker.
The clouds were like smoke;
the woods were like a firestorm.
Not breathing won't save you.
Neither will closing your eyes.
You were your own worst enemy
yesterday; someone else's tomorrow.
A brass phial as a last retort:
they keep making them smaller.
The third moon was an invisible monster
running on freeware and ice.
When it sees you, it knows what to do:
whatever you fear most.
The other side of the sky is another sky.
Its constellations are unnamed.
Whirl Dove Hurtle
what was in the ditch was moody
its sighs wore some wear else
our yardage would not stop dyeing
we ate the levers from the trees
and they did us rare earthly good
when we dug near the foundation
garments we unearthed a marcassin-
and-rubid necklace erectly beneath
the third shovelful of instances
no one wanted to put it on or taste
this unbecame our state of mine
a carriage set out for the cascade
we could see its reseeding wake
pome fruits change when red
F. J. Bergmann is from Wisconsin. She edits poetry for Mobius Magazine. Her work appears in Abyss & Apex, Analog, Asimov's, SurVision, etc. Her chapbook A Catalogue of the Further Suns won the 2017 Gold Line Press poetry chapbook contest and the 2018 SFPA Elgin Chapbook Award.
