Storms from Jupiter

some nights, your dreams are filled
with the mundane, the near-forgettable.
you’ll check your emails. you’ll walk
to class down the road shrouded by giant
palm trees. you’ll buy v8 and shampoo at
the supermarket. but you find that these dreams
are your least favorite, for their playful
tendency to bleed into your waking reality.
you are looking for emails that aren’t there.
you are checking your bathroom to find you’re
still out of shampoo. you’re not sure
what day it is anymore. what conversations
you’ve had and which you haven’t. your father
asks you, have you talked to your mother lately?
and you say, yes, of course. i talked to her
yesterday on the phone. but you think of
the conversation you had, how you told her
you felt sick, you couldn’t stop spitting up
rubies and finding broken seashells in your
pockets. how she told you the last time
she went to jupiter, she bottled up its reddest
storms. she said she can’t wait to give them to you
when she comes home. that can’t be right.
you take it back. you haven’t spoken to
your mother in months. tonight, you dream
you’re in your childhood room again, under
the dim glow of its only working light bulb.
not a single dust particle is out of place, and
you’re on the phone with your mother again,  
but in this dream, you are
                                    screaming                    endlessly
                                                endlessly
                        endlessly.
no words careen          out of your broken mouth
                        just guttural,
                                    wounded sound.
                                                you are           ceaseless, you give
                                                            no room for her to respond,
but in this dream,
            she doesn’t feel the need to.                    
                                                      in this dream,
                                                                                   she understands.

Wanda Deglane is a night-blooming desert flower from Arizona. She is the daughter of Peruvian immigrants and attends Arizona State University, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in psychology and family & human development. Her poetry has been published or forthcoming from Rust + Moth, Glass Poetry, L’Ephemere Review, and Former Cactus, among other lovely places. Wanda self published her first poetry book, Rainlily, in 2018.