Suzanne Marie Hopcroft

NOW I DREAM OF BEYOND

Before my mother died I dreamed of
nothing, or if I dreamed the images that

rose and fell and followed me were plain:

toast pale like cream, the hotel belly I'd
already clacked through cow-like. But

then the broken strand of prayer--

then the dark forest in howls. Now
I dream of beyond, where no flies buzz

around our lumber-filled hands and

every bluebell she coaxes into bloom
is like points at the arcade, which she

cashes in by pointing at what she'd

wish to see unfold: blue gabardine
wrapping a sister, small feet lassoing

the house. What is fearsome is

the brocade of them, the better spirits,
how they flap their tongues and are

clothed like court matrons too stayed

to exhale, ladders calling as loud for
ascension as from our mariachi-burst

subways to the bright aboveground.

Suzanne Marie Hopcroft's poetry is forthcoming or has appeared in Hayden's Ferry Review, Weave Magazine, PANK, Anderbo, Superstition Review, and other journals. Suzanne is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Yale University and writes from Long Beach, California.