I dream I drive to a distant beach with friends I can’t name. (Kelly? Sarah? Which Kelly? Which Sarah?) I drive away without telling you. At the long bridge I’ve seen only once I don’t cross over. I stay where there’s only a little land left on the long fingers. We have to call the state if we think we find a shipwreck. There’s a number to call. I don’t want to drive away with no notion as to when I’ll be back, especially not from you. I wouldn’t do that. I’d call. But (you can hear the but before I say it) there’s something in me now that survived years of quarantine by closing my eyes and dreaming of sand. Of being alone, far from the noise. Not you. Never you. Up north there’s the same things as here only colder. But up north are also fossils I could spend hours turning the soft rocks over in my palm. I look for signs of the ancient creatures that died here, whose skeletons we polish to gleam. I look for shipwrecks too. It’s picked over this time of year but this isn’t the dream anymore. I’m at last summer, we’re together, you peering with your binocs over at the fence of the plover nesting area. I’m in the cold surf with my subpar rocks. Tired as we are, too tired to sleep in the same bed tonight, I want to stay up north with you and our little passions, our little wandering minds. I can dream without you but I don’t want to. Even if you’re not in the dream I want you. Even in my lonely mind I do.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Alicia Hoffman now lives, writes, and teaches in Rochester, NY. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry from the Rainier Hannah Faith Notess is a poet and software product manager. Her first book of poems, The Multitude, won the Michael Waters Poetry Prize from Southern Indiana Review Press. She lives with her family in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she co-runs a poetry reading series, Yellow Chair Poetry, in her house. Learn more about her work at hannahnotess.com.
Image: “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” from The Dollar Store Estate Sale Collection
Pine Hills Review 