Remembering Long-Ago Dreams of My Mother

The Day After Election Day, 2016

All that year,
I dreamed my mother young.

I dreamed her
thick black hair,
easy laugh, the double strand
of pearls she always wore.

When the doctor said,
                                         It’s gone

from breast to brain to bone,
and there are no more
medicines,

still I dreamed her

young and well,

until the end.

Elizabeth J. Coleman is the author of The Fifth Generation (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2016) and Proof (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2014), finalist for the University of Wisconsin Press’ Brittingham and Pollak prizes, as well as two chapbooks. She is coauthor with Lee Slonimsky of the bilingual Pythagoras in Love/Pythagore, Amoureux (Folded Word Press, 2015). Elizabeth is an attorney and worked in public interest law for many years.

Image of mysterious origins from an unknown photographer.

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