Michelle Lewis

WAKING LIFE

It's said dreams are the theater where we
play every role—

that's your hand up your blouse, that's
you jimmying doors

at the same pace you're latching them.
I'm not here to say how

to exit your life. There's that Paul Simon song.
That tale of Cerberus, hellhound

of honey cakes. You've got the drug
box, the confections.

You've got the Angie Dickinson pantsuit,
the  I'm Audi 5000 boys,

I'm histoire, got the radio on Splitsville all
the way to Palooka.

Or don't leave at all. Get tossed out when
that boy you know lingers

and takes you too long, cry like a nighthawk
under that outhouse hole

of a sky. First you're the boy, then you're
the fire erupting,

then you're the pinbones of cold that
ferry the air, then you're the air.

Michelle's poetry has recently appeared or will appear in The Bennington Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, The Feminist Wire, The Indiana Review, and Your Impossible Voice, among others. She is the author of the forthcoming chapbook Who Will Be Frenchy?(dancing girl press, Fall 2016). She lives in Maine and can ice skate a little. You can find out more about her at whitechicken.com.