Issue Thirty-One - Winter 2018

Eat and Dream

By Christopher Nye

Now 90 and still on her own land,
she sits by the sunny window
straight up in her chair,
once-strong peasant hands
holding the arms.

But as in sleeping, her center
is somewhere else,
perhaps in the blue Rose of Sharon
she planted as a switch
that now fills the end of her garden,
perhaps in the folds of the sky curtain
the five senses cannot pierce.

Not truly here, she drifts
free from her mooring,
except that eating pulls her back,
a rope of vegetables, cheese,
a morsel of pork sausage,
juice of red apples.

She remembers
climbing into the trees for Cortlands
and the smell of her pies baking.
From her plump quinces
there was rosy jelly,
now made by a friend.

Food makes her know
she has a body, the time
to be borne away from it
held in abeyance
like a napkin on her lap
until she is done eating.

Copyright 2018 Nye

Christopher Nye 's poetry has previously appeared in SHARK REEF, also Snowy Egret, Chautauqua, Orbis, Kentucky Poetry Review, Pegasus, Berkshire Review, and elsewhere, including anthologies. His most recent publications are a children’s picture book, The Old Shepherd’s Tale, and a book titled Poems Out of Thin Air. He has a Ph. D. in American Studies from the University of New Mexico and studied playwriting on a Fulbright at the University of Bristol in England. Currently he is interim executive director at Orion Magazine.

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