Poem About a Dream, With Shifting Tense

 

I dreamed you were there again

like a delayed letter in the mailbox

twined with thorns, slick with lipstick.

There you were, at my doorway

on my farm where I have never laid eyes

or set foot, nor sat cross-legged in the wild-grown meadow.

You were with someone new.

I was with someone new.

They were both starting to see how things are. 

Your hair, you know, it's like a pillow on a bed

where I long to be. And me, I have the key that you can't find,

as clunky as a cow's bell, as broken as an old washer. 

The guy you were with had begun to see the 

sunset behind your October eyes; I've known your full dark.

I'm here but obscured from the wildflower partner beside me.

I'm getting a vibe, like pixelated messages from space,

that your man would like to be mine instead, and drop his

heavy bags on my rag rug. I think my partner has checked out silently.

So there we stand, in a now that never was,

in a place we never were, playing out a scene like breezy clouds.

I see blackbirds on the split-rail fence, dipping, calling,

and feel my heart break apart inside my chest like a broken door handle.

___________

for Word Garden Word List--The Jesus Cow

Music: Coldplay The Scientist