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If I Remembered My Dreams
by Brenda Davis Harsham

If I remembered my
dreams,
I’d have great stories
with ambushes and
car chases through
city streets. I’d easily
evade cross-dressing
grandma clowns
and black-feathered
ballerinas.
I’d be chased
by giant grasshoppers.
I’d get away
in the nick of time.
I’d soar over over treetops
in a hot air balloon.
I’d solve impossible
theorems.
I’d invent a spaceship
or stow away in one.
I’d speak Spanish,
know the names of
all the stars,
and birds would take
seeds right from my hands.
Instead, I sleep as deep
as the Mariana Trench,
and if I swim with lantern fish,
dine on sea cucumber
or comb my hair with jellyfish,
I will never remember
or wake to tell the tale.

PHOTO: The author at the Boston Museum of Science with a giant grasshopper.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I’m fascinated by the Mariana Trench, the deepest rift in the earth’s crust. More people have climbed Everest than have plumbed its depths. I feel sure that I might visit in my dreams, if I could just remember them. Certainly, I would dream of the Grandma Clown from the Big Apple Circus and the ballerina from the Black Swan movie.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Brenda Davis Harsham lives in New England. She’s been a McDonald’s cashier, graphic artist, editor, lawyer, and writing teacher. When she isn’t writing, she snaps photographs, makes art, invents recipes ,and reads to her kids. Her poetry and prose have been published in on-line literary venues, including Silver Birch Press. A poem is forthcoming in the Best of Today’s Little Ditty Anthology.