I keep inviting my dead to come visit
my dreams, then lie awake all night
an impossible host.
In the dark bedroom, a purple glow
that has no source, grayed wall
of bookcases looms like all the good
ideas I’ll never have.
The alarm clock projects red
hours and minutes on the ceiling
while I pretend time is imaginary,
that my body is someone else’s,
the real me in a row boat
outside on the river in some future
past, stars above bright fish
cast back into the pond of creation
where shadow and light marry destiny.
How any of us get here is a mystery.
Here and gone, the somewhere else
of death that may be nowhere at all,
or somewhere filled with rusted out
pick-up trucks and never-ending bowls
of mac & cheese, or maybe somewhere
we can celebrate breaking in new paths
through woods with healed language.
If my dead reside somewhere,
I hope they drop me a line anytime
in my dreams, or else come visit me
on that other river, where fish
practically jump into your boat then
float back up into night sky.
