I Had a Dream

Still, she sat.
Under stadium
and bleacher camouflage
on bended knee,
her helmet bowed
in silent plea.

Lip-shaped: summers of discontent
and quicksands of injustice,
I squinted into a sidelined
100-yard appeal.
What? I asked
You have a dream?

The ref stepped onto the field,
a whistle and a gloating check book.
Scoreboard tallied insufficient funds!
and his zebra jersey’s bleached striations spread
like growing hash marks on the turf.
White

rose like walls into a maze.
Chalky commands of Stand Up!
to those who stood up
by sitting down.
Still, she sat.

A boom-band marching and clanging discords
with pompom-packing cheerleaders
and fans armed with lazy-boy’s rights
for politic-free nachos
pelted the athletes
until the burgeoning labyrinth
knotted its pasty blockade
entangled the players
and strangled their prayer.
Still,

she sat,
at the front
until we get there
she said
keep dreaming.

Kathleen Klassen is an emerging writer who discovered poetry as a source of healing after injury. She has been published on Bywords.ca, Anti-Heroin Chic, passagerbooks.com, with In/Words Magazine and Press and looks forward to upcoming publications with Alternative Field and ottawater. Read other articles by Kathleen.