Making Up Dreams To Please My Therapist                            Bio
                            by: Patricia Jones

  With my basket full of cans
saved for redemption
I cycle the old haul road
where it runs north, hugs the beach
past what's left of the skunk train bridge.

Suddenly I am cold, shaded
by the underbelly of a large-billed bird.
I can’t see it clearly from below
but there’s a long dangling wattle
and I'm almost certain the head is red.

You know the story, looking up
I hit a bump and without a wrench,
the handlebars fly off before I wake.

Even so, I'm still convinced
vultures keep tabs.



Scavenging For Memories, I Dream In Color

There they were, all lined up
on a garden shelf, fifty-seven horses
nostrils flaring, bodies hollow
and stuck inside them,
unlike the Trojan,
big yellow stars
barely visible through their tails.

I could never afford him
but I wanted the marked stallion,
the one set in Venice
with the masked, two-headed rider
jumping gondolas manned by nude women,
their elongated hands stained half blue.
The split madder heart placed deep
between the continents of the only elephant
appeared to be symbolic so I stole it.

“You did this?” asked the therapist.
“Yes, I did it for you.
Do you think I’m crazy?
Should I keep it?”

“Damn straight” he said.
Patricia Wallace Jones is an artist and retired disability advocate. She began writing poetry after retiring from the Midwest to the northern California coast. She is full of good intentions about submitting her work but, in fact, rarely does. Her poems and/or art have appeared in Avatar Review, PDQ, MindFire, Confused Muse and in various art shows and galleries.