a wanderer tramped through the hills
as of days of old
my name is Martin, he said to the chickens he saw
he said it to the lake
the lake turned away
the chickens pecked on and laid their eggs
the wanderer slept on a ledge
but nothing came to his mind’s eye
he dove into the lake
into the moon’s tail
he stared at stars from beneath the surface
flicked water at moon craters
he pricked his finger on a bottle cap
just some floating flotsam
and whispered
I am another’s dream
Inspired by Elephant Butte Lake State Park in southern New Mexico
Susan Melinda Dunlap is a fiction writer, playwright and poet. Bright Bones: An Anthology of Contemporary Montana Writers, included her short story, "The Haunting of Butte." The Piltsdown Review featured her as a poet and The Alexandria Quarterly published one of her poems in an anthology, End of Summer Poems. She has also been published by Word Riot. The Root and the Bloom and Eye/Land Institute have commissioned her to write plays. Orphan Girl Children's Theatre performed her play THE GOOD SLIPPER through Zoom. A maximum security prison outside of Los Angeles performed her play THE DOG GHOST, as did Montana Repertory Theater. Her work has also been seen at the Last Chance Gulch New Play Fest, the William Inge Festival, the Fringe Festival, 13th Street Theater, Dixon Place and performed by Project in Motion. MFA: Brooklyn College, where she received the Louis B. Goodman Creative Writing Scholarship.
