Originally, All Brown Eyes by Emma DePanise

Did my mother dream in phone

conversations? Land lines, fingers twirling

spiral cord connected to receiver.

Did my grandmother dream in hand

scrawled letters? Her cursive exuding formal

grace they don’t teach anymore.

Last night, I dreamt in videos, holding

a phone, swiping through something

like home movies. My younger sister

and I in Iceland (never been), our heads

on the floor of a cottage, feet in the air, laughing.

Swipe. It’s the Fourth of July. My whole family’s marching,

waving flags. My grandmother’s face, but younger.

She has her arm around me. She’s hugging me. False

moments heat me, invade, store in my brain

as memory. The light in her eyes, the curve

of her lips. This is how we live without breathing.

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Emma DePanise’s poems are forthcoming or have appeared recently in journals such as Poetry Northwest, The Tusculum Review, Laurel Review, The Florida Review, Barrow Street and elsewhere. She is a current PhD student in English at the University of Missouri and is an editor of The Shore Poetry.