Image: János Thorma, Daydreaming in the Fields (Wikimedia Commons)
My poem "Day Sleepers" is now live on Commonweal Magazine's website, coming to print soon in the September 21 issue! Read it now and let me know what you think:
Around midafternoon, our dreams slip out to have a walk around.
They slough off the brightness of day, cloud our vision
and take our pulses. (read poem)
Thanks to Steve Pett, in whose Craft class I wrote this poem many moons ago for my MFA in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University, inspired in this case by Susan Mitchell's poem "The Dead." And thanks to my 2013 ISU cohort for their workshop magic! My piece explores the ways in which we seem so vulnerable and exposed when our dreams come out in the day and we lose ourselves in unexpected moments of sleep, particularly when such sleep is unwanted. Don't be fooled by the innocence of the artwork that the Commonweal team chose—unless you're focused on that somewhat sinister dark shadow in the bottom-right corner....