Dream Life

                                       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.

                                        I barely know you , she says, voice heavy with sleep. I don't know your favorite colors or how you like your coffee. What keeps you up at night or the lullabies that sing you sleep. I don't know a thing about the first girl you loved , why you stopped loving her or why you still do. I don't know how many millions of cells you are made of and if they have any idea they are part of something so beautiful and unimaginably perfect. I may not have a clue about any of these things but this- she places her hand on his chest - this, I Know.