Fog, inescapable fog,

bitter cold and moist, it doesn’t belong.

Not my southwest home, not my country.

So, I reason, this place is someone else’s.

Cold, gray, damp—it can only be Britain.

My spirit gravitates

 to dreams of the Isles, all their eras and glories.

As clouds lower and mist envelopes all, I see:

brown scrub and parched hillsides turn to heath-cliffs,

scraggly dandelions are violets and bluebells

more somber, less wild hues.

Heroes, authors, literary genius,

fruit of Britain fills my mind.

Beowulf, Rochester, Darcy court me; I am their heroines,

I’ve crossed the boundary between book and reader.

As the train glides through the rain, I am:

On the scarlet Hogwarts Express wending

its way amidst mountains,

in a carriage bearing me to Thornfield Hall,

walking through the grounds of Pemberley.

An anonymous Homer of Britannia

carefully chronicles an epic;

Brooding Byron rests his chin upon his hand,

plotting his next gothic romance;

Conan Doyle wanders through labyrinths,

thinking, “Damn that Holmes!”

Austen and Brontë claim woman’s share

of eighteenth-century classics;

Rowling on the brink of despair

takes the hand of the muse to climb out

All now so revered, so loved

weaved their dreams into my mind’s tapestry.

And I hear my name,

“Elizabeth!” across the gardens of Rosings

“Juliet!” a summons to the balcony, where Romeo waits

“Jane! Jane! Jane!” supernatural cry echoed over vastness

All convey a shift in the universe, so profound

A change in the writings of the starry heavens…

“Jessica!”

calls me from my passionate imaginings;

I’ve traversed a reverie-country and been abruptly removed.

In the flush of awakening I yearn, long for my own adventure.

I look around; barren classroom, desks of barren faces.

I resist, clinging to torn dream-weavings,

then smile, and surrender to responsibilities mundane.