“Awake, awake …
clothe yourself with strength!”
—Isaiah 52
“What Really Happens When You’re in a Coma”
—Cosmopolitan (Feb. 5, 2019)
You dream I’m looking down on you
like a light on a ceiling
as though you are a thing
and I am a thing,
a light you aren’t,
shining down
on a body
you can’t escape
even in dreams, like this one
in which you dream
you’re awake, trying to awake
to the light that holds you together
like sticky surgical tape
even when you’re a vibrating ruin, a mistake
that keeps making mistakes,
too hurt,
too convinced you’re nothing
to understand or explain
the light you dream you see,
sassy, dancing,
clothing you in splendor,
glorying in your glory.
That’s when you’re awake.
Joy Ladin is the author of 10 poetry collections, including the forthcoming Shekhinah Speaks (Selva Oscura Press, 2022) and The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective.
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