when i keep having these shameful dreams
i search for the person in charge of them
but when i find him behind the movie curtain
he is also nude his hair a swath of feathers
he is also late for class and when he gets there
his teacher says you shouldn’t be here
with the normal kids you should go
to where the others are he asks where?
she pleads to him just go before they see
he stumbles into the hall and his naked skin
is light in winter through bare buildings
and all the screaming swallows in the pines
and i follow him out into the street
by the loading dock and he lifts out of his flesh
and becomes the calm after weeping
and he becomes a transparent map
of sugarcane and manganese blue mint flame
curling off his hands his mother is there
to pick him up in the 80s chevy
the suffering of the names is rust
and his next breath becomes mine
Scott Ferry helps our Veterans heal as a RN in the Seattle area. His most recent book is a collaboration with Daniel McGinn titled Fill Me With Birds (Meat for Tea Press). His tenth book of poetry, Sapphires on the Graves, is upcoming from Glass Lyre Press in early summer 2024. More can be found at ferrypoetry.com.
