Rereading A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Thomas Zimmerman

Of course, the lovers are in lust, not love.
The forest, fairies, father-figures add
a dash of archetypal lore, above,
beyond the tug of blood and shadowed, sad,

obscenely whiskered id. With donkey-dick,
a rube can screw the Fairy Queen and weave
a dream that words cannot unknot. And sick
of rape and sack, a legend can believe

he’s won an Amazon, yet deeply fear
what she expects. Sex-hope can couple with
chimaeras of the poet and can steer
the course of exiled maid or swain of myth.

It doesn’t matter whom each lover weds:
before the end, the fairies bless the beds.



Thomas Zimmerman teaches English and direct the Writing Center at Washtenaw Community College, in Ann Arbor, MI. Poems of his have appeared recently in La Lune Bleue Planete, Mirror Dance, and Night to Dawn.

Image: A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, attributed to David Scott, 1806-1849.