DREAMS

                                      

Dreams are the only

afterlife we know;

the place where the children

we were

rock in the arms of the children

we have become.

They are as many as leaves

in their migrations,

as birds whose deaths we learn of

by the single feather

left behind: a clue,

a particle of sleep

caught in the eye.

They are as irretrievable as sand

when the sea creeps up

its long knife glittering

in its teeth

to claim its patrimony.

Sometimes my father

in knickers and cap

waits on that shore

the dream of him

a wound

not even morning can heal.

The dog's legs pump

in his sleep;

your closed eyelids flicker

as the reel unwinds:

watcher and watched,

archer and bull's eye.

Last night I dreamed a lover in my arms

and woke innocent.

The sky was starry to the very rind,

his smile still burning there

like the rail of comet

that has just blazed by.