Deborah Artman

I came to Provincetown in 1991 as a fiction fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center, stayed another year and since then come back as often as possible. When I am not here in person, I seem to visit often in dreams with airy houses and many rooms against blue skies, the wind and sun. I always know it is Provincetown because of the light. --DA

How did his voice enter her
so completely
that in sleep, this house––
her own house––
where she is a visitor
and encounters a crowd,
it is he who explains about the roses.
It’s the roses, he says, the roses are blooming
on the Cape, see? It’s the first time in years,
he says, pointing, I’ll show you,
as they ride a wind, and sweep
past the petals open wide
and ecstatic. Are you inspired?


It’s the dead
of winter but she is dreaming Spring, lush
trees and a lake she never knew
existed––right there––she can
see it from her window in
the house whose walls are newly painted
green and are still wet! she says, tapping
her fingers in the paint. His hand plays
at her breast and why should it be
his hand, this play and bloom?
Why does she feed on this,
what’s possible
only in the script she sleeps in?


She would like to unwrap him
from her gently, like a bandage
from a wound. Anything but
this game of contact
and lack. God knows why
she comes back to him
again and again, or dreams
of his kiss in the hollow
of her neck and the want,
how they might turn to each other
and give in, the shock so deep
she wakes up wet and remorseful.



--Deborah Artman