When I awoke, I attempted to interpret the night’s dreams.
In one, I find an alligator in the tub, its rough, knuckled skin seeking desperately to touch me. In the other, the band of my wristwatch dissolves into a dark lizard-like being, textured with tiny, flat mesas. Allan and I were in the kitchen filling the sink with water, I presume, for the upkeep of reptiles. The washes outside were empty with sand.
It was the third morning I had dreamed of water.
That evening, as we sat in a pub, feeling the slow numbness of too much lager the color of horse piss, he showed me the place on his right index finger where a catfish had sliced it open. I found it haunting that he asked if I knew about carp, an overt mythology of a novel I had read the week before. Later, drunk, we will sleep next to one another on the floor of his den.
This time, though, I will dream no dreams to speak of before morning.
Laura Stringfellow writes both verse and prose poetry, often exploring themes of transformation, woundedness, and interdependence in her poetry. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing, and her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in journals including Amethyst Review, Déraciné, and Muddy River Poetry Review.
Eunoia Review 