Migration Patterns
Melissa Studdard
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest 2019 (view all the winners)
First Prize, Tom Howard, Poetry
In the dream I tell customs my llama is a goat.
Because sometimes the heart is not large
enough to hold what is beautiful
if the mind finds it exotic. Sometimes the mind
mistakes itself for a hoarded piece of land
and little campfires spring up everywhere. Smoke
slinks through chain link. Small hands and shoulders
capsize beneath a dehydrated, salt-sick
sun. In the dream I carry mountains through
international waters. I carry the hills, their babies,
to safety. Sometimes I wave away a predator
and there is fire in my hand and my hand
does not want to be part of a human body.
It wants to belong to the llama, the goat, the hills,
the mountain. In the dream I've got the North Star
in my trunk. I'm driving it across a border.
I'm taking it to a different part of the sky. It can't
stand what it has seen. What we need
is not a fixed point. What we need is a world
anthem that everyone knows the words to, one
that says, Come in, come on, come over. I've got you.
In the dream, light leaks from thin cracks
where the trunk door meets the body of the car.
The star says, Put me on the dashboard, and I will guide
you. The officer says, Illegal. You can't take a star
to another part of the sky. And I say, Watch me.
I say, I've got enough light to do anything.
