Dreamscapes by Ann Blackburn

I

A little boy is on a swing set blown by the wind.

Mulch flies around him — dead little girls climb the monkey bars.

Seesawing cats and dogs tremble hairlessly.

An eyeless woman gets splinters sitting down.

The slide is covered in double-sided tape.

A headless goat ‘Spring Rider’ stands motionless,

and the metal rainbow merry-go-round whips limbs in every direction.

II

The boy wraps four fingers

around the metal spear,

lifts his elbow,

and releases.

The silver fish falls into a puddle of

its own blood, and the scales slowly

peel from its body

one by one until the fish is bathing

on a metallic red sun.

Ann Blackburn is a student at Sarah Lawrence College where she studies poetry. She has studied with Cynthia Cruz, Suzanne Gardinier, and Martha Rhodes. She is currently working on her manuscript. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Maudlin House and Red Paint Hill Poetry Journal.