The Immunity of Dreams
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
Feature Date
- January 25, 2019
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Copyright © 2019 by Andy Young.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
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.
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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