Poetry: Dream from the Tiger by Jona Colson
Jona Colson’s ethereal “Dream from the Tiger” crawls into your lap—oversized, striped, purring. We adore the echoes of Stevens’ “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock”, the ways Colson generates fresh new meaning in the images and language, and wish too to part the Tiger’s fur with our two hands.
Dream from the Tiger
After Wallace Stevens
Catch me again in red weather,
old sailor, tired of traveling
and deserted boats
but still demanding tendrils
of vanilla and periwinkle.
Don’t you remember?
Your sleep was like two hands
firmly parting my fur.
We can return to this dream
and dry into the shape
of lace and light,
striped and golden
so we don’t disappear
and gather what we need
in my teeth.
Jona Colson
Jona Colson's poems have been published in Ploughshares, The Southern Review, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection, Said Through Glass, won the 2018 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from the Washington Writers' Publishing House. He teaches in Maryland and lives in Washington, DC.
