DREAM OF MY FATHER’S SHIVA, ATLANTIS, 1450/3074
There are no orchards. The air is water. Everywhere, curves.
I was meant to serve as a warrior, but here
I observe fluorescence, futurity in the green that is
not green but neon, which is not a color
but rather a glow. Fish I don’t know
the name of make Os of their lips.
There is an implication in the reticence, in the modesty.
If the city is a drowned still life, there is only one way
to finish the proof: in dreams
we always arrive in the middle and leave in the middle,
as in life, where the only knowledge is
we have been born.
Lisa Hiton is a poet and filmmaker. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry from Boston University and an M.Ed. in Arts in Education from Harvard University. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Linebreak, Lambda Literary, The Paris-American, and Hayden’s Ferry Review among others. Her first book was a finalist or semi-finalist for the New Issues Poetry Prize, the Brittingham & Felix Pollack Poetry Prize, the Crab Orchard Review first book prize, and the YesYes Books open reading period. She won the AWP WC&C Scholarship (2016), the Esther B Kahn Scholarship from 24Pearl Street at the Fine Arts Work Center, and two nominations for the Pushcart Prize. Her chapbook, Variation on Testimony, is forthcoming from CutBank Literary.