Two Dreams

Lucyna Prostko

“The darkness surrounds us...

- Robert Creeley

In my dream I was a bride:

gazing from under thin veil blonde curls

small hands more like Marilyn Monroe

than myself dancing

among the throng of restless friends

who turned out to be strangers

faces turned toward the wall

in your dream I ran away from you

on a fat glistening horse

in a large Mediterranean city,

perhaps Šibenik you chased me through the narrow

streets I screamed for joy then dissolved

behind an old brick church no the portal

of the cathedral

over the long-maned lions

Eve right across from Adam

under the limestone flesh invisible

ribs entirely her own

her belly button sacred birth to self

in the morning, we buttered our daily bread ate watermelon cubes,

searched the clatter of the day

to divide the unnecessary from the unreal –

balancing act sidestepping red azaleas creeping above us entering

intricate doorways losses this hour of seasick dawn

later our car swam under the steeples

of pines while the darkness

licked its fingers, unfazed –

 

Lucyna Prostko is a Polish-American poet who graduated from the M.F.A. program at New York University. Her poetry appeared in various literary journals, including Fugue, Washington Square, Painted Bride Quarterly, Quiddity, Ellipsis, Salamander, Cutthroat, One Jacar Press and Five Points. Her first book of poems, Infinite Beginnings, was a winner of the Bright Hill Press Poetry Book Award. She lives in the Adirondacks, New York.

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