I’m in the future wearing a powder blue pants suit and those pale blue heels from my favorite consignment shop. When I look up amaretto, I already hear the voice of the stranger from my dream: “Did you say amaretto?” When I google it, I’m in an espresso-stained apron, squirting whipped cream on a towering iced mocha, eating all the crinkle cookies I want as long as the manager doesn’t see. In the dream, I’m always worrying, wearing the suit or the apron. No in between. No muskrat-sheltering stream dresses with wild blue phlox hems.

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Emilie Lindemann is the author of mother-mailbox (Misty Publications, 2016) and several chapbooks, including capsule wardrobe for the end of the world (dancing girl press, 2019). She holds a Ph.D. in English-Creative Writing from UW-Milwaukee and works as a communications instructor. Emilie lives on a farm in Wisconsin with her husband and son.