Submitting to a Dream Journal

Poetry by Chrissy Stegman & Ewen Glass

Saturday

I trip. That’s all. 
A single step, perhaps.
But the fall feels forever
the way a dream stretches 
t       i            m                  e.
I wake up and check 
my shin for a bruise.
She sleeps soundly through 
It all.

Sunday

I walk with John Ashbery into a Paris café. We hold hands with the
scent of butter and rain as it folds against the wooden tables. White
porcelain cups of milk, petite golden forks. Then the waiter arrives
with plates of X. X, XX, XXX, XXXX, XXXXX. Rows upon rows.
Ashbery nods. I lift an X to my mouth and taste the static and salt.
Like the lick of a battery. X, X, XX, XXX, XXXXX, XXXXXXX.
The table has a wobbly leg and shifts. The floor floods with X. X
climbs my leg. X becomes X. The waiter says, “X, XX, XXX,
XXXXX, XXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXX. X. X X X X X X X.”

Monday

I dive into an ocean full of questions, not water
(they’re still salty):
what have you actually accomplished?
Thrash thrash thrash but where are you going?
It reminds me of when I got a vanity license plate,
and it turned on the car to which it was appended.
Bit old, aren't you? Could do with a wash.
And, of course, I knew it was talking about me.

Tuesday

I rename Time, Tim.

I strike the E so it isn’t happning.
It dosn’t xist bcaus Tim is a
figmnt of tim.

Wednesday 

The street is made of copper it’s beautiful but when it rains we slip
all over the place and I can see my family up ahead trying to style
it out with smiles as they discuss whether all this is worth it just to
come and see me.

Thursday

His shadow feels brighter than him,
more playful in movement,

but it stops when he does
all the same.

Friday

I leave my childhood
zip code in the ashtray.

??????!!!!!!!!!

Saturday Again

Variations of this
happen
t       i      m           e       and Tim again

Chrissy Stegman is from Baltimore, Maryland. Recent work appears in: Rattle, River Heron Review, Gargoyle, Molecule, Gooseberry Pie Lit, Jake, UCity Review, Okay Donkey, Gone Lawn, Stone Circle Review, Fictive Dream, and BULL. She is a two-time Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee. www.chrissystegman.com.

Ewen Glass is a screenwriter and poet from Northern Ireland who lives with two dogs, a tortoise and a body of self-doubt; his poetry has appeared in the likes of Okay Donkey, Maudlin House, HAD, Poetry Scotland and One Art. Bluesky/X/IG: @ewenglass.