A Brief Dream Under A Summer Moon
After Bashō

1. That morning I read some poems
2. Could not walk far because of my surgery
3. A wholegrain roll I filled with chicken and coleslaw for lunch
4. Thought about the fridge being a silver coffin we carry around
5. Listened to Jim Morrison singing ‘The End’
6. Thought of tubular bells making a comeback
7. Falling into water then rising up: my heart dipped
   with the tabla drum
8. …the world, a brief dream under a summer moon
9. Decided on Earl Grey
10. Stood at the window and thought how quiet the street is
11. Wiped sticky fingerprints from the handle of the fridge
12. Stared at the packing cases in the hallway
13. Texted my husband: ‘We had a dream and we made it happen
     we should be proud of ourselves’
14. Stared at the pale yellow slipper orchid, newly opened;
     large and quiet and perfect
15. Read some poems
16. Remembered the one I wrote about cormorants nesting
      in the huge macrocarpa at Brendan Beach
17. Thought about looking it up but remembered it was packed away
18. Asked Google the question: How long does a stone
     take to round off in a riverbed?
19. It depends; some take a few weeks and some 100,000,000
      years or more
20. Looked up the actor Mandy Patinkin
21. Noticed his wife, Kathryn, looked the same age
22. Wondered if he was still friends with Claire Danes?
23. Marvelled at the trivia I “knew”
24. Thought of my mother dying in the afternoon, falling asleep
      with a book
25. Glanced at the bed and wondered
      but lay down anyway.

Wes Lee

Wes Lee lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. She has four poetry collections — her latest, Wearing Today, was shortlisted for The Kathleen Grattan Poetry Award 2023 (Otago University Press), and has been launched this month in Wellington. She has received a number of awards for her writing, including, The BNZ Katherine Mansfield Literary Award and The Bronwyn Tate Memorial Award. Most recently she was awarded the Magma Editors’ Prize 2024/25; The 2024 Free Verse Prize, by the Poetry Society, in London; The Heroines/Joyce Parkes Women’s Writing Prize 2022, in New South Wales; The Poetry New Zealand Prize 2019. Placed in The Plaza Poetry Prize 2025 and The Fish Poetry Prize 2025. She was selected as a finalist for The Fool for Poetry Chapbook Prize 2023, in Ireland (Munster Literature Centre); shortlisted for the Poetry London Pamphlet Prize 2023, and The Alastair Reid Poetry Pamphlet Prize 2024, in Scotland.