Betty Stanton
Translation
In sleep, touch becomes translation, against skin
the body learns language, not words but temperature,
pressure, the grammar of pulse. In dark, meanings melt
and form again, mouths speaking in heat, inventing an
alphabet of breath and heartbeat, hesitation, the divine
in tongues. Each kiss is a transcription, the oldest
conversation the flesh remembers. We enter each other's
dreams, air humming as if touch were lightning in rain,
electricity in the skin. Some nights I feel you breathing
through me, your lungs borrowing mine, ribs syncing
in the rhythm of forgetting. We dream ourselves as water,
endless, unfinished. We fill every hollow, move through
every scar. I wake with your pulse in my mouth, your
heart beating in mine. When the body forgets, dreams
rebuild in silence, memory struggling, keeping itself alive.
Bio
Betty Stanton (she/her) is a Pushcart nominated writer who lives and works in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in various journals and collections and has been included
in various anthologies. She received her MFA from The University of Texas - El Paso and holds a
doctorate in Educational Leadership. She is currently on the editorial board of Ivo Review.
@fadingbetty.bsky.social