Whatever Dreams

by Anne Waters Green

We drove the rental car past the Welcome
to Las Vegas sign on our way to Zion
and Yellowstone. Past gold clad towers,
lavish gardens, and fountains, the continuous
lines of people eager for photos
to show they made it.
We reached the north end of the strip.
Seedy, not glitzy. I saw her there.
She wasn’t young and she wasn’t old.
Her cheeks were sunken.
Lips closed over empty gums.
She pushed a grocery cart
piled with lumpy plastic bags.
Her hair was pulled into a ponytail,
blonde, but not flaxen like the towhead
she may have once been, nor golden
like a woman who keeps a standing
appointment with her stylist.
Her hair was the yellow of someone
who, whatever dreams had betrayed
her, still believed in them enough to buy
a bottle of peroxide at Rite Aid.

Anne Waters Green lives on Mount Hebron in southwest Henderson County in North Carolina.

About Whatever Dreams—This poem, written in Eric Nelson’s “Poetry by Example” workshop, drew on the memory of a brief glimpse out a car window.

Previous post: Spring Chores

Next post: Union

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Issue 28 – Spring 2023
Home
- Elizabeth Lutyens, Editor in Chief
  “It’s Only Human”
Interview
- Great Smokies Writing Program Coordinator Jennifer McGaha
  With Special Features Editor Janet Moore
  “What’s Next: Building on Firm Foundations”
Nonfiction
- Amy Jane Lynch
  “Walking the Barrel”
- Amanda Burns
  “Remembering Clare: A Love Story”
- Zoe Rhine
  “The Prankster’s Laughter Stone-Skips Across the Lake”
Fiction
- Billie Harper Buie
  “Refugees”
- Pam J. Hecht
  “The Lions”
Poetry
- Judith A. Davis
  “Stopping by a Farmstand on a Summer Afternoon”
- Karen Luke Jackson
  “Open Heart”
- Margaret Bishop
  “Dying to Be Born”
Craft Session
- Bruce Spang
  “Syntax as Style in Poetry:
  The Invisible Craft of an Artful Sentence in Poetry”
Reflection
- Zoe Newton
  “Selective Memory”
Archives
The Great Smokies Review

Elizabeth Lutyens, Editor-in-Chief, Founder
Janet Moore, Special Features Editor
Julie Abbott, Submissions Editor
Patrick Pickering, UNC Asheville Intern
Michael Mauney, Photographer

Jennifer McGaha, Great Smokies Writing Program Coordinator
Lilly Danzis, GSWP Administrative Assistant
Tracey Rizzo, Dean of Humanities, UNC Asheville

The Great Smokies Review is an online publication of The Great Smokies Writing Program, a joint effort of the UNC Asheville departments of Literature and Language, Creative Writing, and the Asheville Graduate Center.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
We accept student fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction submitted by faculty of the Great Smokies Writing Program and other UNC Asheville writing programs. Submitters will receive a guidelines checklist to complete.

© 2023 The Great Smokies Review

All rights reserved. This publication may be freely distributed only in its entirety and without modification, and only for private use. Excerpts may be reproduced and distributed only by permission, except in the case of quotations for use in reviews and interviews. The creative works published in The Great Smokies Review do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of its staff, The Great Smokies Writing Program, or the University of North Carolina Asheville.