Thanks For Coming to This Side of Town 

A POEM BY ALISON LYNCH

Washable Silk Wrap Sleep Skirt

I hate when people tell me their dreams. 

I hate when someone’s like, 

It was me and my fourth-grade teacher and Dr. Evil and we were stuck on a

broken escalator at 

my old ballet school and it was really scary. 

I am uncharitable to this person, 

resentful of the performance they ask for because 

their story has all the trappings of mattering (they were scared) 

but in reality does not matter (didn’t happen) 

and frankly undercuts itself (Dr. Evil cameo). 

Describing one’s dream is an unforgivable waste of everyone’s time, 

I said once and you laughed, 

which reminds me, 

I had a dream about you. 

For years I was certain I’d run into you 

Ideally at the farmers market 

My tote a performative burst of swiss chard 

You’d ask all the questions but I’d just want the one 

“Oh, nobody serious,” I’d say 

With enough of a pause to make you wonder 

(I rehearsed for hours in the mirror My star turn that never was) 

But I couldn’t picture your expression 

I’m leaving for a while 

This thing I applied to in Portland 

I’m excited I think thank you 

ex-lovers ugh 

but what’s a better word for 

don’t answer that 

you were always too honest 

do you want to hear the dream? 

I’m walking up to your place, late 

trying to sneak up on you like you like 

like you used to like 

not a creak from the wood steps beneath me 

(that’s how i know it’s a dream— 

your real stairs always groaned under what my mother calls my “heavy tread”) 

but I’m airy as tissue paper 

draped in a moon-blanket of absolute silence 

not even the gods can hear me 

I slither open the screen 

turn the knob tick by tick 

and float like a petal onto your living room rug 

lights off it’s inky dark 

my hands are gauzy shadows 

you’re in here somewhere 

a magnet 

I step cautiously 

edging into the black 

every follicle an antenna 

probing 

seeking 

and then 

just beyond my breath-baited fingertips 

I feel you smoldering 

my kindling skin prickles 

I’m utterly combustible 

ready to be consumed 

destroyed 

reborn 

any moment you’ll appear 

easy as a sigh 

now 

now 

NO— 

Mrs. Wheeler’s 7am leaf blower robbed me of your face 

I laid there for a moment 

settling 

stiff-necked in the vulgar morning light 

wondering if you ever ended up cutting your hair 

you did