— Victoria Dym
Parlor Tricks
My hand goes up. I present to the hypnotist like a beacon, a magnetic sign that flashes—
Pick Me. Walking from the rear of the auditorium down the aisle, I think:
This is fake—a stage show, a parlor trick
and then, almost as soon as I take a seat on the stage, say my name, extend my arms—
it’s over— I open my eyes to cheers, laughter and applause.
I feel like I’ve had the most restorative hearty sleep. The show is over—
a crowd forms around me in the lobby; they say,
You scratched and clucked like a chicken—made a joke, speaking in Martian.
Yet, I remember nothing, save his watch, back and forth, his voice, Deeper, Deeper—
my eyelids flickering like a baby’s would, in the womb.
The Iris Catcher
She faceplants on concrete, middle of the day,
one moment upright, the next horizontal.
a tumble on the sidewalk, walk in the park
she falls; — helpless falling, — falling without abandon
falling with gravity, with serious force
falling to the ground,
the ground that will eventually take us all
He’s by her side, like he’s been for years
bends over to right her, collects her handbag
the witnesses hover when he rolls her into sitting,
her forehead fresh with blood and bruise,
a liquid dot of blue on her cheek; her iris has leaked
from a tiny rip in the lens
He scoops the blue goo into an emptied
pill bottle, of purse-size Tylenol
He is her iris catcher and she, his blue-eyed beauty.
Victoria Dym is a graduate of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Clown College with a degree in Humility, and holds a Bachelor of Arts, in Philosophy, from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Master of Fine Arts, Creative Writing-Poetry from Carlow University. She is currently working towards a Narrative Therapy Certificate. Her prizewinning chapbook, Spontaneous, was published by the West Florida Literary Federation in 2022. Two earlier chapbooks, Class Clown (2015) and When the Walls Cave In (2018), and her full-length manuscript, The Hatchet Sun (2023), were published by Finishing Line Press. Victoria is an improv artist with regular performances at the Commodore Theater and yearly appearances at the Countdown Improv Festival, and she hosts and produces Poetry on the Lighter Side, where poetry and improv collide. Victoria holds Laughter Yoga workshops and works as a patient actor with Nova Southeastern University, USF and the University of Tampa. Read more about Victoria in a 2024 feature article in Tampa Bay’s Creative Loafing Magazine.
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