The Body Dreams Itself
       

into an avenue of steam, the streetlights
glow a slick sheen. And down this road,
this August night thick as wet wool, a car
rattles. The body dreams itself heavy,
heavier—into the muscled flank
of a horse straining at a plow and then
it dreams itself a stalk of corn, husked
and k~rneled, ready to be pig feed.
The body dreams itself a lime and thus the dreams
are technicolor—scarlet, turquoise, safflower.
(And lost are mirrors, shadows, wavering
reflections in the lake.) The body dreams itself
a postage stamp licked, a dirty sock, the twisted
wires in a phone. It loses its memory
and becomes the flavor of cauliflower, the gap
between a note tweaked from a saxophone
and a woman poised to dance. The body dreams
itself pocked, festooned, dwarfed, and slathered.
It wakes in its own arms,
loose flesh, glass
bones.

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Copyright © 2018 Sharon Fagan McDermott All rights reserved
from Life Without Furniture
Jacar Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission