The Immunity of Dreams

Andy Young

I made a house of water for my hands             my son says, half-submergedthat night his shout wakes me             from dreams of the salt flats of Siwa                        air like white smoke                                 in the distance                                             figures in bright cloth                                             leaning into the wind                                                         which takes their voiceshow did people know to call it wind                            to call it a thing                                    when it was just air moving       I can’t answerthe drowned                                               child face down                                               in the news photo                                                        looks like him at two                        I want to eat fire and have it not be hota boy five days old                     crossed the sea                               in a life vestmorning questions          sound of spider steps on metal                                I need some words for Thursday                                            I need a string of words to climbwhy do you hand me                     this vest a woman asked                             before she saw the child inside it

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Andy Young is the author of the poetry collection All Night It Is Morning (Dialogos Press), as well as four chapbooks, including ]ohn Swenson Dynamicron, forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She teaches at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. Her work has appeared recently, or is coming out soon, in Prairie Schooner, Waxwing, and Ecotone. She can be found on twitter at @andiumuse.

Southern Humanities Review

Volume 51, Number 3

Auburn, Alabama

Auburn University

Editors
Anton DiSclafani, Rose McLarney

Managing Editor
Caitlin Rae Taylor

Poetry Editor
Rose McLarney

Southern Humanities Review is the literary quarterly published from the Department of English at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. Founded in 1967, SHR publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Work published in Southern Humanities Review is considered for Best American Essays, Best American Poetry, Best American Short Stories, New Stories from the South, Prize Stories: O. Henry Awards, and the Pushcart Prize.

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