F. J. Bermann

Refrigerator Heaven

   I’m freezing, I’m freezing, I’m icicle blue.
—Alice Cooper, “Refrigerator Heaven”


Humming all night, the cold heart of the fridge
beckons a sleepwalker. Out on the ridge
of the sloping roof, a cat ignores the stars
and planets too. The sky brightens to blue;
the cool moist air condenses on sky-blue
delphiniums eight feet tall against the house.
Somebody’s making coffee in a daze.
Somebody goes out to the chicken-house
to feed and gather eggs. More pop stars
on the news: a man who hugged a child-
hood he never had and couldn’t let go of—
the imago or nymph his fans adore—
while all the rest of us, no longer child-
ren, run after something gleaming, go off-
stage, see what’s in the fridge these days:
a light that fails each time you shut the door. 

F. J. Bergmann is the poetry editor of Mobius: The Journal of Social Change (mobiusmagazine.com) and freelances as a copy editor and book designer. She lives in Wisconsin and fantasizes about tragedies on or near exoplanets. She was a Writers of the Future winner. Her work has appeared in Abyss & Apex, Analog, Asimov’s SF, and elsewhere in the alphabet. She has competed at National Poetry Slam with the Madison Urban Spoken Word slam team. While lacking academic literary qualifications, she is kind to those so encumbered. She used to work with horses. She thinks imagination can compensate for anything.