The blaring sun becomes memory
on our skins, there is no horizon line
between sea and sky. How incredibly
fortunate we are to know the silence
of Zen in these hammocks.
You lean towards me, skim my chest
with a clasp of your hair until I fall asleep,
and here is where the whole
god-dammed thing changes.
I wake up in a strange room to the sound
of public radio, someone has brewed
coffee instead of tea, there are math books
stacked on a nightstand next to the window.
Outside, the streets demand their morning
fix of cars and shoes. A crowd at the
bus stop is blurred by rain.
Years have passed. I still
don’t know where the universe broke.
The champagne toast we planned for later
did not happen, neither did the twilight
horseback ride. Perhaps sleeps got cross-tied,
or a worker on cloud nine misplaced a file.
Perhaps there was a sudden shift
in the velvet black of dream-tectonics.
For all I know, a man I’ve never met
woke up under your clasp of hair from a dream
that by all rights, should have been mine.
DQ 12/30/08
