Wendy Gist has had her poetry, fiction and essays featured in Amsterdam Quarterly, Burningword, Empty Mirror Arts and Literary Magazine, Glint Literary Journal, Gravel, Grey Sparrow Journal, Juked, Poetry Pacific, Pif, Rio Grande Review, Soundings Review, Sundog Lit, The Lake (UK), Tulane and many other fine journals. A native Arizonan, she now lives in New Mexico.
Glitter and Dust
dusky scented rain
splats tin roof, falls in beads
from hot springs bath house
onto aloe leaves
To My Dream
“Dreams are true while they last,
and do we not live in dreams?”
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
It’s electrifying the way in which
we collide: your mouth wants I.
Time is nonexistent. The dream
begins and you dowse me.
I know nothing about
a dream’s needs—only a sheen
like an ocean of stars.
My god, come here.
No, don’t let me see;
I’m at the outer edge of that realm.
If you vanish—would I know
your odor? And, if so,
would these reveries be unreal,
forgotten, surreal, and the chance
of another lucid moment,
nothing more than phantasm?
Intimate Waters
If you want me
I’ll be in the foam of timeless now
silent as a ghost
in love with the living.
Come find me there,
and part my Red Sea
with your tonic of stars
that elevate the light.
Merge our intimate waters
in a spume of mystery.
Blush
(For John)
You can touch flesh
with your gentle fingers
darker than my bright body
transparent as a tear
that drips from an icicle
passing through in the sun
shaft of a New Year’s afternoon:
sinewy hands may knead
tummy, birthmarks, fondle all nakedness
matchless as a single snowflake.
You can witness my neck, breast,
belly, knees and toes
blush carnations presented to you
in this ritual of breath.
The Galway Review 