Synkroniciti is excited to welcome poet Valerie Sopher of the San Francisco Bay area with “A Dream That Didn’t Want to Stay,” a moving poem recounting a dream about a lost love. In this vision, the lover again breaks off their relationship, but the dreamer is convinced this time that he does not want to do so, that he is operating under the influence of a lie. “He believed the lie/ or misinterpreted/ something I said/ when no sound left me,/ or something I did/ when no hands pulled away.” As she wakes, she longs for the world of the dream. It’s hard to know what the subconscious means with such imagery, whether it is asking for deeper probing inside the self or expressing grief for a loss that occurred in the waking world–for a bond broken, a possibility ended–or both. We are given no explanation, no interpretation, but allowed to share the vulnerability of the moment in an extremely resonant way. Valerie’s poetic language is soft and transparent, with gentle repetition and palpable frustration that is heartbreaking and sensitive. Sometimes dreams open old wounds or wound us anew.
Read “A Dream That Didn’t Want to Stay” in Synkroniciti’s “Dreams” issue, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
When not writing poetry, Valerie Sopher sings, plays guitar and gets her hands dirty with fabric and thread. She is a retired lawyer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is grateful to Orchard Street Press for publishing her chapbook, Day for Night, to SLANT, Comstock Review, Science Write Now and Wingless Dreamer (contest winner Dawn of the Day), among others, for publishing her work and to the Ina Coolbrith Circle and the Benicia Love Poetry Contest for honors bestowed.