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Column 869

Dream in Which My Body Is a Snow Storm

11.15.2021

Some­times dream poems” give an account of the strange rev­e­la­tions of our sub­con­scious, and some­times, like here, the dream poem” is the poem of wish­es and hope, express­ing a fan­ta­sy of a cer­tain long­ing. A.D. Lau­ren-Abunas­sars poem, Dream in Which My Body Is a Snow Storm”, imag­ines a world in which the bad” out­comes are upend­ed by a kind of mag­i­cal hope; and here we have a les­son in the inno­cent plea­sure of wish­ing for the good by the force of imagining.

Dream in Which My Body Is a Snow Storm

and doesn’t make anyone cold. If I fell I would fall
in state-shaped flakes. One for every place my body
lingered. One for every little bit of light I stole
and kept. No cars startless. No tangled up roadways. Neck
becoming mountain of drift; foot becoming fierce kicking
eddies. Heat would not melt me. Hands would not help
me undo. Blanketing softly. Whimsy not pretend.
Dream in which my body is a snowstorm and the storm says
a purpose in falling.

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We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2020 by A. D. Lauren-Abunassar, Dream in Which My Body Is a Snow Storm” from Nimrod International Journal, Fall/Winter, 2020. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.