print previewback CATE LYCURGUS
A Dream Dependent
I would not have you descend into your own dream. I would have you be a conscious citizen of this
terrible and beautiful world.
—Ta-Nehisi Coates
Overnight, they circled. Surfaced. If I
had kept whites wide awake, I would
have, might have, seen the hoop not
yet sprung at dusk come up, have
watched slim parasols rise & spread; you
never can tell where webs descend,
where filaments thin as hair creep in
to mat a lawn’s under-rot. You’re
not sure of this ration of magic, that grown
from nothing, these caps aren’t dream—
nothing comes so easily, in dappled dark, eyes
double blink—a mower’s blade would
make quick work, strong-armed light have
its way & shear translucent shade. You
too could step inside the ring, be
disappeared to dancing. So many ways a
body can be undone, undo—unconscious-
ly I want mine to, to shrink as citizen
of sod—my god, I pray to not prey, but—of
my own accord, I can no more raze this
loop than turn sun to terrible
sweet—syrupy dew sags each stalk &
watch how ribs flip inside out, break to beautiful
busted gills—like one ruin could salve the world 