are you real?
in unpinned bliss on an Alabama porch swing
covered in linens and letters
while little bats fly in library guardianship,
nibbling midnight moths in sickle moonlight
never was I real, never in the indices,
never one of two dapper women at tiny dining tables,
world of papers, tender books of fiction
I was not meant for life—
you and night
have a way of bringing me back
Elizabeth S. Gunn serves as the Dean of the School of Arts, Sciences, and Business at Nevada State University. She writes poetry and fiction in Henderson, Nevada, where she lives with her wife and their three rescue pups in the endless Mojave Desert.
