This poem was first published in Pissour, a print-only pocket-sized magazine from Salo Press.

41 years old and reading Mr. Men

I was shocked but more accepting than I should have been, by which
I mean I did not ask why, because this was a dream. I lost my coat
too, and what did that mean? An omen or warning, maybe.

A black coat from Reiss. (And why do these details spring up and
breathe in an airless sleep?) It’s your morning, too, and 6.44 where
you are, too, and my morning only slightly different:

It’s these questions I have. (An astral whodunnit: a whydreamit).
With all the chasing that goes on in dreams, one thing is missed and
going unmissed. I would like to be so unexamined. Eyes open,
reason streams in. Chain turns snake – turns day.

Susan Gordon Byron is a non-fiction editor and podcaster based in London. Her poetry has appeared in Dust Poetry and tiny wren lit. After a NCTJ postgraduate diploma in newspaper journalism, she worked at the Catholic Herald for two years. She hosts The Culture Boar Podcast and you can find her on X @cultureboarpod.