Amy Nocton

Trance to Reverie

Inside I am going to sleep. I am
tucking in my limbs, forgetting the swish
of my leaky heart. I succumb to the owl’s
nightly prayer or the lather
of someone else’s shore. I dream:

of an icy cabin filled with frost, prison-
like pressure and your voice’s echo,
three embraced, sacred number, we plummet,
and I awake. He said dreams have a place,
are real. Here,

you see, my eyes are not so blue as lapis stone
nor as celestial as the porous sky
and the inky events of the night mind
frame each unfurling sunrise, cool
amber. There,

in the ocelot’s cage, we felt power,
hope, and fear. Monkeys rattled their prisons,
and naked Scarlet Macaws shivered, hating
quarantine. A living ghost
tribute. At home,

a tiny wren learns its father’s spring song.
Tangled warbles, later blossom bold.
His hymn, a salute, chases
dark. His ballad reminds
the constant river

to feel, to remember, to dream, to hold.
Hauntings move through all beings. Presence
braids loose tendrils into temporary
feathery order—trance
to reverie.