Daniel Stewart: The Dream of Falling

Lambert Yuri

The Dream of Falling

You wield an axe

like you understand

it’s made from the flesh

of something living.

Think, cut. Say, sever.

The rhythm of these lines

scarring your cheeks

unrhymed.

Your eyes scissor

layers, no structure

safe, not marrow,

not cells.

When falling in a dream

it’s said to hit ground you die

in waking life. Yet after every dream

of falling, I find myself awake

and rise.

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Daniel Stewart has taught in the Writers in the Schools program since 1999, and serves as Writer-in-Residence at Ada County Juvenile Detention, and Frank Church High, an alternative school, in Boise, ID. He is the author of a book a poems, The Imaginary World (Wolf Peach Press, 2003). His poems have appeared in Puerto Del Sol, Rattle, Prairie Schooner, Educe, A Journal of Queer Literature, Sixfold, and Thrush Poetry Journal, among others.