I dreamed I was a mannequin in the pawnshop window of your conjectures. I dreamed I was a chant in the mouth of a monk, saffron-robed syllables in the religion of You. I dreamed I was a lament to hear the deep sorrow places of your lungs. I dreamed I was your bad instincts. I dreamed I was
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Recorded for Poem-a-Day, December 18, 2017.
In the Light of One Lamp
I crawled into bed and closed my eyes and not long after heard the small hooves of the horses, the tiny ones that gallop in our dreams, or are they the dreams of our children, galloping through the black ruins. Everything we do is against the crippling light. To hear them cry at night is to know they are alive. When they are scared they come galloping down the long hall calling your name. Tonight, it is our oldest daughter, the red mare with her fiery mane, she snuggles in between us and falls back to sleep in your arms, to that secret place inside her, she barely moves, crossing over the river, through a grove of alders, through the black ruins, she is the one who once whispered, the grass it knows everything.
Copyright © 2017 by Sean Thomas Dougherty. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 18, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
Copyright © 2017 by Sean Thomas Dougherty. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 18, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

Sean Thomas Dougherty
Sean Thomas Dougherty’s most recent book is The Second O of Sorrow (BOA Editions, 2018). He lives in Erie, Pennsylvania.