Phil Goldstein

My Bedroom Becomes a Field for Flowers

I lie awake in a pool buried in a pool
trying to remember breathing’s rhythm-
rattle but all I get are bubbles.

I need you! I call out to the dim hallway,
but all I get is ambient electric hum.
I need you! I need you! I need you! Louder,

thinking repetition and volume
will matter. The windows vomit
fresh-tilled soil filled with violet seeds

and soon my hair is brushing
the ceiling, and I shut my eyes tight
knowing this is just a dream.

But when I open them, I’m in a purple
garden, alone but for butterflies
swimming around my head.  

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Phil Goldstein's debut poetry collection, How to Bury a Boy at Sea, which reckons with the trauma of child sexual abuse from the male perspective, was published by Stillhouse Press in April 2022. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net award and has appeared in South Florida Poetry Journal, The Laurel Review, Rust+Moth, Moist Poetry Journal, Two Peach, The Indianapolis Review, Awakened Voices and elsewhere. He currently lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and animals: a dog named Brenna, and two cats, Grady and Princess.