Lindsey Schaffer is the author of City of Contradiction (Selcouth Station) and Witch City (dancing girl press). Her work has appeared in Reservoir Road Literary Review, Ethel Zine, Runestone, and elsewhere. She serves as a poetry editor for Variant Literature.
A Dream of Athens
It has been four years since we went abroad &
a dream hangs over
my day like a gel cling. We returned
to the Parthenon together, painted the columns red, left
our mark on the temple that ages as we do.
I have begun to feel the weight of time;
mole removal that results in scars
a chronic illness that leaves invisible ones
hair that falls out due to deficiency.
I didn’t expect to feel it so young. I didn’t expect that aging
would manifest in an urgency
to return abroad-
to the place that existed before.