Dawn Schout
Hudsonville, MI
This poem emerged from Dawn’s dream of her tomato garden:
VINES
Before the sun changed
into the blood red of autumn
leaves, so the cold night wouldn’t kill
the tomatoes, they plucked the still
orange ones off
the vines, gathered them
in quart baskets
left upstairs in the barn.
That night she dreamed
him into a tomato plant,
his tall body a vine
sprouting out of a cage—
the bed that confined them.
His head, hands, and feet,
yellow flowers, became green
orbs, then orange, then fiery
red, smooth and soft,
vines reaching to her, the sun.
Dawn Schout’s poetry has appeared in more than 50 national and international publications, including Dagda Publishing, Fogged Clarity, Poetry Quarterly, Red River Review, and Tipton Poetry Journal. She has won two poetry contests as well as the Academy of American Poets’ Free Verse Photo Project and is a Best of the Net nominee. Her debut poetry collection, Wanderlust, will be published in January 2015 by WordTech Editions.