Nichole,

          There’s an alarm that controls my dreams. It erupts with the sound of bicycle bells and emits white-hot bits of melted gold. It’s a foretelling. This is the point at which you always appear, exquisitely dressed in your vintage ensembles and carrying a platinum egg the size of your heart. You cradle it in your palm, loosely as a newborn. I haven’t dreamed since July. This is why the precocious Winter refuses to come. She visits me in the hours of absolute darkness, when the sun’s just a promise whispered in that way which makes the night blush. The desert sky—forever cloudless, blue stars radiate a light that splits from their center entrapping her within the shivering glow. But she won’t stay for you. In my last dream you met me at a table in the coffeehouse of unexpressed identity and we watched the wide world outside the window. Strangers ambling by, tucked in thick parkas, the only color that of holiday lights adorning the corpses of trees. An entire city unknown to our hearts. I found myself wondering at the nature of love, asked you, do you feel that memories have become like thin strips of metal? They like to surround me, welding themselves in the shape of a birdcage. You turn from the window to pierce me with still eyelashes the exact color of freshly fallen snow. You said, They only cage when given permission. 

 

Maevyn Frey is a feminist poet, writer, and essayist. A former Pushcart nominee, her work has been anthologized in Neon Literary Magazine, Sandscript, Mom Egg Review, and Thin Air Magazine. She earned her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2015. Maevyn is a former docent of the University of Arizona’s Poetry Center and current president of the Wordsmith’s Workshop, a creative group for poets and writers in Southern Arizona. You can explore her essays here: https://medium.com/@maevynfrey.

A Song for Maevyn