My dream begins like a fairy tale.
Wild wolves are in the house—not tame
ones, like the insipid talker that seduced
the girl in red—but loud, howling wolves.
Their mouths open, their teeth gleaming.
A whole pack of them disrupting a party
my mother has planned for weeks. They tear
through the buffet: the carefully arranged
relish tray, perfectly seasoned chicken
casserole, elaborately decorated raspberry
torte. Not to mention what they
do to the guests. Terrorizing people
I don’t even know—men in navy suits,
women in white gloves—strangers
in my own house.
Finally, my father
and brother chase the wolves out.
They brandish heavy chains like cowboys
with rope lassos, stopping the wolves
and their wildness. Herding them
out to the backyard.
That’s the part
of the dream when I realize my mother
isn’t there. Not in the bedroom
with its silent walls, not in the kitchen
with its stainless steel, not in the eyes
of my father, vacant and blue.
I leave
the house and the wolves to find her,
traveling down a dark road that leads
me away from all that I know. I find
another house—strange but familiar—
and there I find my mother. She is talking
to another mother, an African woman,
about heritage, family, roots. They both
seem to be connected, joined; as if my mother
is this woman’s daughter. My mother
who talks with her hands as she
punctuates the air with fingered
exclamations, with an embrace
of questions. And then it happens…
as if in slow motion, the fairy tale
transforms itself into a faint
heartbeat. My mother stops everything—
her gestures, her talking, her breathing.
I rush out and scream for help but nothing
greets me. My scream becomes a single
note piercing the air like a violin’s
long wail before the bow leaves it.
My dream is empty for a long time
until a faceless man appears
on the open road pushing a red
wheelbarrow. He rocks it like a cradle
and I know my mother’s soul is nesting
inside, still and quiet.
In the center of this hollow
wheelbarrow, the woman who gave me
birth is now lifeless, curled
like a nautilus, the ocean’s memory.
And all my tears, and all my prayers
cannot bring her back, cannot awaken her
from the wheelbarrow’s lullaby.
Not even
my alarm clock’s shrill commands
or my brother’s loud call:
YOU’RE LATE, YOU’RE LATE.
Not even knowing my mother
lies sleeping—alive and sleeping
in the bedroom down the hall—
can shake the dream awake. Dream
of wild wolves and their full-throated
songs; dream of a daughter
and the long-haired soul of her mother.
Linda Nemec Foster is the author of twelve collections of poetry including The Blue Divide, The Lake Michigan Mermaid (2019 Michigan Notable Book), Talking Diamonds, Amber Necklace from Gdansk, and Listen to the Landscape. Her work has also appeared in The Georgia Review, Nimrod, Quarterly West, North American Review, New American Writing, and the Paterson Literary Review. A new book of prose poems, Bone Country, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2023. The inaugural Poet Laureate of Grand Rapids, Michigan (2003-05), Foster is the founder of the Contemporary Writers Series at Aquinas College.
Featured Artwork:
Trinity
Joshua Effiong is a writer and digital artist from the Örö people of Nigeria. Author of a poetry chapbook Autopsy of Things Left Unnamed(2020). His works have been published or forthcoming in 580 split, Wrongdoing Magazine, Vast Literary Press, Native Skin and elsewhere. He tweets @JoshEffiong