dream

If I told you I didn't want anymore qualms,
what would you say?

I am climbing up the rusty bleachers
to a high place--a sweet light envelops

me and then I am carrying you, sick you,
around dark streets as mean wheels screech
on every freeway in the city. O, to cover my ears--




but there you are with me and I am numb
and as worn as the texan grass.

When I call your mother, she knows, and I am just
pressing, pressing dark dirt stains
from a white pillowcase with my fingernails
and a warm glass of water. She sobs a little.
Hangs up a million miles away.


I am like a child with salt in my right hand
and I don't even know it.


If I never saw you again, would I be afraid?
And what would fear look like
if it had a face?

For now, I see you and you are
looking into a lion's eyes--

they are gold like a gold you can't have here
but you've waited all your life.

I breathe, turn the cotton in my hands,
the stains linger, growing fainter.

For now we see in a mirror dimly,
and that has to be okay.