What Breathes in My Dreams

What Breathes in My Dreams Victoria Garton (bio) What Breathes in My Dreams How can I sluff off the body that breathes in my dreams?It arises to walk nimble as it once did. I waver, grab for railing,send prayers out like parachutes to catch me.Prayers and fears barely keep me upright. By the side of what road will I slip out of these dreams,leave them for someone able and young, leave themas the discarded skin of a snake I once found,papery and dry, yet so other I couldn't grasp it. We enter most days thinking life is a raceand against the wind's resisting hand we laughand dream our ferocious dreams. We keep goingwhile the wind sweeps up the shed skin of illusion. We move from this self to another like changing train cars,grasping seat backs, letting our knees take the shock,moving in a zig-zag jig that lacks the grace of waltz,and yet we say to old photographs, "That is still us." In a special section we sit, the disabled and different,yet this is our life, so immediate, so present. OnceI sluffed off dreams, left them for someone able and young,but my nimble dreams came looking for me, as I am now. End Page 110 Victoria Garton Victoria Garton's books are Venice Comes Clean (Flying Ketchup Press, 2023), Pout of Tangerine Tango (Finishing Line Press, 2022), and Kisses in the Raw Night (BkMk Press,1989.) The anthology, From K.C., MO to East St. Lou, (Spartan Press, 2022) featured ten of her poems. She taught composition and literature for Crowder College until May 2020 and experienced a stroke in June 2021 from which she continues to recover use of her right side. A fellow poet commented, "This stroke will give you lots of new material." It has. Copyright © 2024 Pleiades and Pleiades Press