Six Dreams in One Night

Another Donald Hall inspired...

1.         In my dreams I wander gilded dance halls,

Hedged gardens and moonlit lakes. There are doors to desires

And forests holding feasts. There are benches and booths

Where I find my friends in laughter and boisterous stories.

The beach dunes are daunting and the waves match the sea.

In my dreams I find desks and shelves of books

Written in the run of turpentine and oil making words illegible

 

2.         when I dream. I follow characters down dusky sidewalks

That slip into lap pools where traffic lanes should be. I hoist my body

Into the wood-plank and rope swing my father once fastened to an old Oak tree.

I pump my legs and arch my back. The shingled leaves rustle

Above my pendulum. I let go with both hands and plummet

 

3.         and twitch. Flying, my arms are rabbit-ear-receivers

Coasting on warm winds. With a swoop I break the pool's reflective skin.

In the limbo of non-gravity I find comfort in the breathable waters

Like incubating, not-yet-birthed. Surfacing, I am engulfed in the Chlorine air

Pocketed under the parachute of Maple leaves

  

4.         hovering above. A pit-bull prances past, off leash. I watch my dead cousin

Push his ten-speed up county road crackle, past the chicken coop and rabbit barn

We used to set fires behind. His brother is on the tin roof of a trailer like he was

When I was five, when I was seen, but not heard. They throw rocks

At cars and crows and I want to stop their violence, but

 

5.         I am walking downtown until a horizontal escalator pulls me

Past storefront windows of stacked hat boxes, gold-chained clutches, and chrome

Kitchen gadgets. Mannequins are posed and dressed in my lover's clothes.

By the butter-glow of headlamps on cars I search for where I parked,

But I am distracted by cracks in the pavement. I am looking

For someone's eyes in a crowd

 

6.         of hipsters and pharmacists. I meet a gaze, two-toned trinkets,

Set under bedroom lids and peering over a pint glass. A cluster

Of pushy-shouldered strangers cloud the spaces between us.

In the haze of pale orange dawn I search a queen-sized space for her.

 From a pecan-shaped fishing boat I troll the vastness, aiming for the center of the sunset.