All in by Hannah Silverstein

by Hannah Silverstein


Some things you do not have to see
to know their meaning.

Some meanings you do not have to know
to see. Water, or ships in a crowded harbor. I dreamt

I was pregnant, and, also, a boy. I was a spy
on a mission in the Mediterranean. Imposter.

I did not watch the State of the Union. I clung
to the lifeboat, trying to remember

the country code
for my librarian, to ask

what to expect, if the baby
would live, or was a baby,

not a dream. The body moves and the mind
rationalizes after. I take a breath

because the air smells sweet—OK.
My chest squeezes cold; I must be afraid.

Yes? No? Google says
pregnancy in a dream

is sign of a growth. Is that good?
Manipulate the body with motion,

medicine, food, sex, but the mind
keeps thinking, what now?

I haven’t felt joy since—
How much is enough?


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Hannah Silverstein lives in Vermont and is a student in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Her poems have appeared in LEON Literary Review, Whale Road Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Terroir Review, The Ekphrastic Review, SWWIM Every Day, and The New Guard.