This pandemic year has, reportedly, given us a more exciting night life in the form of more frequent and vivid dreaming. Are we really dreaming more? Or are altered days and rhythms leading us to better recollect and ponder our night lives? The content has surely reflected our times. Reunions with family and friends figure prominently in dreams. There are the mask dreams—scenes of people unmasked at restaurants, parties, other gatherings. People coming too close, unmasked, menace clear. Our prose piece this issue, “And Wicked Dreams Abuse the Curtained Sleep,” by Rob McKean, takes us on a personal and creative journey into the how and why of dream production

In our poetry section this issue, many of the poems ponder how we communicate across generational, and personal divides and constraints. Indian poet Ridhi Bhutani gives voice to an unheard generation and offers the power of silence in her poem. Doris Ferleger’s poems give insight into the difficulties of mother-son relationships and the challenges of communicating and living with a child with Tourette’s Syndrome. Paula Reed Nancarrow’s “Invocation”  and Thomas Locicero’s “The Worst Day to Have an Autopsy” offer imagery about what we take away from the dead, while affirming the living.

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Be well, stay safe, help each other.
Leonard Lang, Senior Editor and Adrienne Pilon, Associate Editor

Contents

Prose

Robert McKean
• And Wicked Dreams Abuse the Curtained Sleep

Poetry

Doris Ferleger
• Praying at the Temple of Forgiveness
• Uncursing Tourettes

Ridhi Bhutani
• Oceans in Our Mirrors

Thomas Locicero
• The Worst Day to Have An Autopsy

 Mark Belair
• The  Neighbors Downstairs

 Paula Reed Nancarrow
• Invocation
• Foreclosing on the Garden

 Rachel Tramonte
• Call This Research

Tim Blackburn
• Letter from North Carolina

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