Michelle Reale

are not at all like dreams. It’s the spilt sugar on the Formica countertops, the tongue that flicks  the grains that make the teeth shudder like the tremor of premature death.  It’s mistaking the milk for the honey. It is the look of astonishment for one of lust. The noise the change in the pocket makes for wealth. It’s staying in the chase without love.  It is the stare without being seen.  It is the touch without being warmed, or transformed.  It’s the road ahead but without a single place to go. It is the place but no space for you when you get there.  It’s the intense desire without the available opportunity. It’s the chance without the sparkling wheel to spin. It’s the warm cup overflowing but still feeling parchedness.  It’s that vertiginous feeling without cause. It’s whatever is sweet in the moment, whatever we need to carry on. It’s bitter after taste.  The manifold illusions we mistake for happiness are not at all like dreams.  But they might as well be. 

 Michelle Reale is the author of several poetry and flash collections, including Season of Subtraction (Bordighera Press, 2019) and Blood Memory (Idea Press), and In the Year of Hurricane Agnes (Alien Buddha Press). She is the Founding and Managing Editor for both OVUNQUE SIAMO: New Italian-American Writing and The Red Fern Review. She teaches poetry in the MFA program at Arcadia University.