The Dream Sequence

THE January birthdays are no more

My sisters gone, my brother too, before his time.

My mother’s chores forever un-done

My dad a cipher in the family photo.

The aunts all dead, the uncles no longer slipping

This wide-eyed girl a dollar for ice cream.

I still know so little of Life

The circle becoming spiral

Down & down I go.

Mornings rekindle, afternoons fleet

The dark lasts forever

When I dream myself awake

In its deepest center,

Finally free of expectations,

Debt & doubt,

And guilty foreknowledge.

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The morning is a deal from the Gambler’s deck

A constant shuffling sound, the slap of cards to play.

I think back at the cat

Lounging on the corner of the bed

In her sloe-eyed silent blink

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Where has the when gone?

When I grow up

When I fall in love

Nightfall is a doorway of stars

The price of its freedom paid

With the fee of simply closing my eyes.

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Who knew even books would float off my little island of life

To other shores?

I pull my hands from storybook heroes

To fold them in my lap.

Simply staring down the night

Distilling into dreams

As antidote to the push n pull of living out loud.

In the logic of the impossible

I am it all:  beginning, middle, ending

Surrendered into breath.

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The mom & pop of selfing

Now unimportant.

I owe nothing, being no one

Anymore.

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Dreams brush up against me in a way other bodies never will

An intimacy unmatched with humans

Here is a language spoken that I understand

No matter its accent or words.

I coalesce into Carol on Friday night

Convinced all will change by tomorrow.

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A cat named Drift rides a horse named Moon

Through a night of satin & coal.

I’m known for my words, not the dreams of my sleep

Nor the rotund shape of my soul

All the nonsense of life

Washed up by tide to my door

Bringing light at its end:

From sacrum to sternum

A human once more.