Dreams.
I recommend them.
The
easy way to go. Tipped siren,
sip
of Benadryl.
There
are days I want nothing more than to
step
onto the seabed. There, I lived
in
the hollow of your throat.
Do
you remember? (It was only
a
day; it's okay if you forget. Really.) Then nothing,
just
the creekbed,
crawdaddy graves, Poprock husks.
Last
week, I went to my sleeping baby
and
reached for her. An empty crib. I knew
that
they had taken her to Mexico, and I
would
have to kill myself (gas)
or
move to Paris. But I was still dreaming.
She
was actually in my bed, had never been
in
the crib. I sang and sang to her.
Louder. Still she slept.
A
mistake, but I kept dreaming anyway.
In
the dream: a strand of seaglass and you. I
was
there too. It seemed like a punchline,
the
slippery side of a gesture, end
of
a joke: us, there, on the seabed,
too
deep for the sun to reach.
Are
we shells? you said.
I
tried to answer, open my little shell mouth,
but
nothing. Only bubbles.
A
river is a river is a river. Yes?
My
student wants to write a story
about
a man who thinks he is in love
with
a woman but is really
just
in love with the air around her.
My
student is still young enough
to
believe these are different.
And so I write on the board:
pools are pools,
oceans, oceans.
