Poems > That Dream Again

THAT DREAM AGAIN

In the dream life, the laptop is missing
and this is terrible:
nothing there for the trip,
the purse flat as if everything in it
is lost:  the necessary keys, the camera,
the card that gets you a dollar off,
the glasses in their new red case.
The plane is waiting…

In the waking life, the laptop
Is on the kitchen table, you think --
you know -- your pulse slowing down,
the real pillow in its cool slip a relief
on your cheek – phew, you say,
that was only a dream
and everything will be okay

…and so you return to the dream life
in which the laptop is still gone
and you have to board the plane
without it and you think there is something
very wrong with you because you can’t
find your glasses or your purse or your money…

and in the waking life, you get up this time
and check the table and the laptop is there, of course,
where you left it, and you think, I will turn it on
and its mauve starburst lights up and you click
on CNN and nothing’s new
and everything is as it was, and so,
taking two or three deep breaths
you go back to bed again…

…and in the dream life the plane is about to take off
and as you hurry up the metal steps
it hits you, this odd release…it feels good to be without
that stuff and as the plane ascends you feel
yourself getting lighter and when you look down,
you see the school of your childhood and
you tell somebody next to you,
that is my old haunt and I had a good time there…

And in the waking life, when you get up
The laptop is still there waiting for you to
fire it up and you look at it, its black frame
entirely real and fixed and you think
you have to do something with it, a lot of things,
and you find your glasses in their new red case
in your heavy purse with money in it and you sit down
in a hard brown chair and you begin,
wishing for that dream again.