Coming To

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Coming To

Let’s pretend it really is like waking. 


Let’s say the dream rips at the seams

and you slip out in a thin sheen 

of sweat, bare feet cold against 

reality’s floor. Suppose, so stripped,  

all the horrible things you did 

you didn’t, the horrible ones 

they did undone, at last

in no one’s hands but yours

the box which smelled of woodsmoke 

and held the sun. Like how 

at a lamp-click the room weaves

together—glass of water, ceiling fan, 

pants draped over desk—imagine 

the long tangle of loose threads 

stitched, the flit of all 

those half-recalled faces 

fixed. Let’s pretend it was so. 


For that, you’d be willing 

to thrash a while yet 

in these tangled sheets, no? 

 

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