Lynne McEniry
Covid dreaming
I thought I was done being pregnant
kids in their 30s no period
for the past two years but these
Covid dreams are so real
they repeat themselves so real
that my uterus is still contracting
come daylight still trying to
forget that in this dream nature chose
to end it early and why I don’t even
know and how I got
dream pregnant in the first place
I can’t quite recall in the dream pain
I’m thinking how it’s supposed to be
that once the babies are delivered
bodies eventually forget the pain
and even in the dream I recall
a time I found that to be true
yet, it’s Covid time now and even
after I am fully awake even after
morning coffee and check-in texts
with the kids my hand still rests
on my abdomen still feels
Covid-induced contracting
and it takes three days to realize
that the ending
of this dream baby’s life
is my intensifying fear for my
grown children living socially distant
connected only by technology now
no comforting hug to calm
their fears no way for me to keep
them safe from a silent killer
that could sneak in without
their consent suck the life
from their lungs and three days
after the dream I’m still expecting
blood in the toilet
Secretly in my dream I knelt down and asked them to make room for my grandchildren
after Mary Oliver
I was spending the weekend with my two
grown children both in their 30s one
married one not yet both told me
years ago they didn’t want children I
believed them then believed that I
understood each reason believed that I
would have plenty of other children in my
life to share that love with I
knew it wasn’t genetics that made me
aunt to four great nephews of my dear
friend and that the child of my niece feels
just like my own but really looking at my
kids this weekend my joy in their familial features my
delight in their unique ideas their common habits I
longed right then for one of them to tell me
they’ve changed their mind that Yes I
would someday be Nonna and that I
would hold their child and see my eyes or
hear my laugh and the other one to say to me
Yes they will birth the cousin that our family will escape
extinction for at least one more generation
this was only my dream though and I
only need open my eyes to remember
nothing can die …
… and I asked them,
in my dream I knelt down and asked them
to make room for me.
Lynne McEniry’s book, some other wet landscape, is published by Get Fresh Books. She edits manuscripts and leads poetry workshops upon request and is poetry co-editor for The Platform Review for Arts By The People. Born in Yonkers, NY, Lynne lives in Morristown, NJ, and teaches at Saint Elizabeth University.