"What Is Dreamed Can Not Be Made Solid" by Charlotte Hamrick

What Is Dreamed Can Not Be Made Solid

In my dream we talked
with an ease and candor
we never had
in the wakened world.
In reality your face was winter thunder
even while smiling,
a warning hovering
just under your skin. I watched
your face, your body language,
your resolute back
in retreat. I waited
for thaw, for April’s slow awakening
but you appeared
and disappeared, created your own seasons.
Tremulous lifelines snapped in the mute days
of our becoming when I realized
our dreams
were never shared.

Charlotte Hamrick

Charlotte Hamrick’s poetry, prose, and photography has been published in Foliate Oak, MORIA (Issue Three), Connotation Press, Unlost Journal, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the 15th Glass Woman Prize. She is Creative Nonfiction Editor for Barren Magazine and lives in New Orleans with her husband and a menagerie of rescued pets.

Headshot: Charlotte Hamrick

Photo Credit: Gabriel Miller