"Duplex: Origins" by D. Dina Friedman

Photo Credit: Dainis Graveris, obtained and licensed through Unsplash

Duplex: Origins

The pain in my body, did it come from a dream
or a lack of love, a void of dreams spreading

from knees to neck—a void of love, a lack of dreams,
the only escape: the foggy brain’s imagination.

Get out of the fog, my mother would say
leading me to places with harder edges.

Harder for her to lead me out of pain,
the ache of it a half-bitten apple, left to bees.

I was afraid of bees, the mystery of a sting.
Would I die from it? When would I die?

When would the pain die? And when
would my fancies fade into fingers of fog,

fingers that could balm my body’s pain,
seep some love into those twisted dreams.

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D. Dina Friedman has published in many literary journals and received two Pushcart Prize nominations. She is the author of two YA novels, Escaping Into the Night (Simon and Schuster) and Playing Dad’s Song (Farrar Straus Giroux) and one book of poetry, Wolf in the Suitcase (Finishing Line Press). Her short story collection, Immigrants, will be published by Creators Press in Fall 2023. Visit her website at www.ddinafriedman.com.