Why Do You Miss the Breeze Blowing from an Oscillating Fan? by Ace Boggess

[question asked by Grace Welch]

I dreamt one night I escaped from prison:

the Harley dream, wind against blushing cheeks,

smell of perfume off fields of flowers.

I awoke broken, chained. Now,

released, it’s that wind I search for

as if brushing my face like a damp towel,

freedom the getting-away, getting-by.

Without this cushion, lungs can’t breathe.

I might as well be back in a cell,

dreaming a hole in the wall, a way out,

as the dream me dreams about cursing

the turning key that will lock him

in a sterile space: some hell, hospital,

home for strangers too long on the road.

Ace Boggess is author of the novel A Song Without a Melody (Hyperborea Publishing, 2016), and two books of poetry, most recently The Prisoners (Brick Road, 2014). Forthcoming is a third poetry collection, Ultra-Deep Field (Brick Road). His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, and many other journals.