Judith Skillman

Tipton Poetry Journal – Spring 2021

In Dream

Judith Skillman

We never understand the wrongs done to us, the betrayals, and, underwater, other languages, tongues so foreign we are deaf and must ask the other to speak louder. In sleep shrill cries come from our mouths, stories, antagonists’ names. Undress. The meal will be waiting on its plate without its host. The woman will say she’s going to throw you out of Nordstrom as you, defiant, swear and curse how you never planned to steal the purse you placed in your own purse. You took it out to show your sister and that friend who never speaks to you anymore. It had a brand name, it was the one under consideration, just as, a split second before this instant, you underwent interrogation in a committee so large the United Nations delegates, seated on their leather chairs with translation devices in their ears, frowned until you had to slink away, and she, the woman, always the same Directress— meant to have a confrontation, always the same as when she pinched your arm in a remote chateau at the outskirts of Belgium, and had her personal policier drive you to the airport at 1 am. Fiction or reality — the marbled airport floor, the ticket window closed, and those lipped lions standing in front of every full hotel.

Judith Skillman is a resident of Newcastle, Washington and a dual citizen of US and Canada. Her work has appeared in Cimarron Review, Threepenny Review, Zyzzyva, and other journals. She is the recipient of awards from Academy of American Poets and Artist Trust. Her new collection A Landscaped Garden for the Addict will be out from Shanti Arts Press in 2021. Visit www.judithskillman.com