Where I Started as a Poem

In the dream I smooth a hand over my belly,

thick with ripeness, a pregnancy, a melon.

It ends in a stillbirth, creativity

bypassed, membranes of thought

flushed. A punishment arranged itself

in my sleep. Judgment of the self.

I wake in celestial sweat, slide one foot

onto a cold floor. I am gladder to be alive

in the dark, in the dank, where I started

as a cloud, where I started as a poem.

Warehouse

Last night’s dream is watermarked stationery,

the sudden and unexpected architecture

of your day. Climb inside, says the deaf man

with binoculars, and the ceiling opens up

into a wave of calendar pages, each one

a reward you can’t reach. Fix it, he pleads.

You don’t feel like repacking old ideas.

Sequential, he demands. His hand

is unfinished, three fingers missing.

He can only point like a gun.

It’s just a day like any other,

a deaf man in binoculars

with you as you butter your toast,

tune in your favorite radio station.

His hand, what did it mean?

Learn a second language, you think

as you tear off yesterday’s

page on the calendar.