Marc Tretin’s most recent poem to appear here was “No Return Address” (August 2018).

In a Dream She Will Never Recall, My Ex-Wife Speaks to Me About Our Adult Daughter
By Marc Tretin

Marc, in the crenellated valley

of your left hemisphere,

where flesh makes thought,

our daughter comes to me

as Qetesh, the Goddess of Vengeance

and Sexual Ecstasy.
She is riding on a lion

with one hand holding a lotus

and the other hand holding an asp.

She tells me who she is by opening her mouth

and sentences come out that are vipers.

Their flickering tongues and confident fangs

sense my warm flesh. I am barefoot. 

I must climb the cold rocks

their sine-curving bodies

cannot scale.

There is no warming between us,

though we look into each other’s eyes

a long time. She suddenly looks overconfident.

“I am what is wonderful about the world,” she said.

As she loosens her grip on the mane,

she says, “If bitten, I’ll be born again.”

She starts to dismount.

The ground is squirming with snakes.

“No,” I say, but don’t want to say “No”

so I shout, “NO.”

I jump down with broken feet

and fall on my bruised knees.

Dry, cold bodies slither urgently

over my ankles.

I feel one, two, many bites.

Warmness travels through my calves,

thighs, hips and finally heart.
She strides away on her beast.

I cannot bear the heat.

My feverish lips are cooled by a barren rock.

I taste its bitterness

until I can no longer see her.

And as always, I feel lost in you.