At the End

by Sarah Dickenson Snyder

 
We turn and dream
into another exile—
bonfires, possums,
and snake-killing.
Nothing dies slowly
in dreams,
it's fold after fold
of some inscrutable map
or bobbing in a wooden skiff
on mysterious waters.
What are we finding there,
what particle of us
do we return with?
I dreamt the pharmacist
at CVS was my doctor
and she said, The baby is crowning.
How royal we are
in our dreams.
Then I was waving
from a car in a huge parade
of tickertape and celebration
for all those years
I lived.


* * * * *

Sarah Dickenson Snyder lives in Vermont, carves in stone, & rides her bike. Travel opens her eyes. She has four poetry collections, The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), With a Polaroid Camera (2019), and Now These Three Remain (2023). Poems have been nominated for Best of Net and Pushcart Prizes. Recent work is in Rattle, Lily Poetry Review, and RHINO. sarahdickensonsnyder.com