Common House Magazine

a dream is always a poem

while a poem is not always a dream

―Arlene Paré

If I dream of yellow branches, of tawny pelts,

a foal struggling for life, and crows with ineffable

destiny beak-probing a skunk’s entrails,

where is the poem? Is my grief reflected

in the lion’s eyes, does my twilight

among the trees glint with shiny things

a gleaning bird might light upon?

In sleep, memories birth themselves

limp, damp with amniotic

wash. The shriveled hour when I cried,

inelegant, begged a boy-man

to love me, when my chest cracked

and my heart sagged out to fall

upon the sticky floor. I dream

of ladders, of rooms nested within rooms,

of sensing/knowing which muscles to flex

to control the glide between rooftops

and canyons, my treetop-brushing flight.