Stones, a hill.
What have I forgotten?
Grass silky as cornstarch.
Fog comes under a door. No.
It’s not fog, it’s smoke.
It’s churning, it’s water.
The noise is on the other side
of a wall, high in the wall.
Now the sound is off.
And then I realize:
I am inside a dream.
A woman is being beaten.
I can reach my hand out
and the world parts.
The dream is nowhere
but the woman is
in every part of the world.
From Undid in the Land of Undone by Lee Upton. Used by permission of the poet and New Issues Poetry & Prose at Western Michigan University. Copyright © 2007 by Lee Upton.
award year
2009