Brooke Sahni

Freudian Dream

I dream of the places we never went together—
canyons and campsites, cool boulders, 

my back arched beautifully across it, the way you said you wanted
me—sun-soaked forests. 

In my dreams, I’m pressed against you in our sleeping bag,
and coyotes begin their frenzy even during the day. 

This is how I remember I’m dreaming. 

When I wake, I hear Freud—dreams as wish fulfillment,
a bittersweet reminder of how you haven’t left me. 

I hear again the call of the coyotes, feel the heat
of our shared tent, and depending on how deep 

my missing is that day,
sometimes I interpret their call as a longing,

or sometimes just the joyous sound an animal
makes—yipping, hot 

feasting, full
under
the moonlight.

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Brooke Sahni is the author of Before I Had the Word (Texas Review Press, 2021), which won the X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize. She is also the author of Divining (Orison Books, 2020), which won the Orison Chapbook Prize. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in journals such as Alaska Quarterly Review, Denver Quarterly, 32 Poems, CALYX, Indiana Review, Cimarron Review and elsewhere.