dreams

He’s familiar somehow, though taller here in this dreamspace, or maybe he’s more than one — some midnight rendering of them or Him —

but whatever he is, we’re at the library — a colonnade and chandeliers, passing spines and shelves

talking about books in a rambling conversation like you have with that person who so easily takes up the space next to you

remember?

I think I know him and love him — I must — because when he leans in to kiss me I oblige

and we keep walking, out the door and through town past nighttime store fronts

until I wake up and wonder if I should perhaps entertain the idea of a Him again

or if these midnight visits are comfort and substance enough for the ten or twenty bit of road left ahead.

Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. Image by Merve. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

26 – Trickster Dreams

The fox who darted just out of eyesight yesterday morning while I poured coffee is screaming

mid-night screaming

so I half-wake, check for the cat, glance at the clock, tumble back into our trip to New York

a brilliant spring day, sunshine and pink trees, a street cafe/coffee shop amalgamation of people

it’s pungent loud, crazy and beautiful

You’re up ahead buying a hand-knit mask, balancing your coffee and flowered purse

I’m pacing by the India-print tunics, on the phone with the ex-lover only you know about, flirting in that way we do so no one overhears

and before I can say I Love You goodbye again to you there in the City on that wonderful city day or to him again on the phone

I’m riding in a pick-up careening through the copse where the screaming fox lives, smashing head-on into a great old beech

its fox-copper leaves jingle like bells to wake me for the day

Image: Poem ©2020, Jen Payne, for Mary Anne Siok on her birthday. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.