Betty Stanton

‍ ‍

Reverie

The moon drifts through the corridors of sleep, patient,
pale. It moves from one dream to the next, light touching

the walls as if reading them by memory. Night lays its
hands over our eyes like an anointing. The world exhales,

for a moment we belong to it again. The stars, the thoughts
of the dreaming sky. They flicker when the mind forgets its

subject, their light rewriting itself in real time. Sleep speaks
in a language made of weather - cloud, rain, lightning, wind,

each element a version of prayer. Every dream carries a small
inheritance of light. We wake with it still clinging to our skin,

nova-bright, trembling. It fades by breakfast, but sometimes a
trace remains: the taste of rain in our mouths, the feeling of

having been swallowed by something vast, endless. To dream is
to borrow the gods’ unfinished language. Each night we become

their songs, their imperfect translations. They whisper in images
because words decay too quickly. Our bodies last longer, easier

to remember. We wake with the taste of eternity on our tongues,
a faint sweetness, impossible to name. Morning unravels it all,

light breaking the cadence, air burning the residue of dreams,
and something in us awakens altered, still shimmering bright.

Betty Stanton (she/her) is a Pushcart nominated writer who lives and teaches in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She received her MFA from the University of Texas – El Paso and also holds a doctorate in educational leadership. She is currently on the editorial board of Ivo Review. @fadingbetty.bsky.social