Two Poems

Grotesque Dream

Painting by Alfred Kubin

Madelyn, the mother of five,
considers romance to be dark

chocolate—she craves it,
eats too much, ends up talking

to a wave, shore like a letter
her mother wrote her from the grave

that she can't read. Death,
a fragrant guy in a boat, floats by,

calls to her. She turns away,
will not become his harbor.

 

Aunt Gwen Tellin' It

My dreams are like Japanese
beetles eating holes into a just
bloomed white hibiscus. You think
that if my dreams come "true"
then I'll be pulled up from a river
that I never jumped into. Dreams
beget dreams. And nightmares.

I thought I wanted to marry,
to have kids. That one came "true"—
it's like a nighttime dream I have
where all my teeth fall out.
     I wake up
          sweaty.