Dreams Woven

You were bigger, kind of burly -
evoking Deidrich Bader in Office Space.
You were slightly balding,
but with long (shoulder-length) hair,
not quite stringy, but also not well-brushed.
No facial hair.
You wore jean shorts (not cut-offs)
and a faded and stained band t-shirt from the 80s -
maybe Bananarama or the Bangles -
there was a large pink scalene triangle and some aqua writing.
You were still sexy, somehow,
and I asked you to show me all your tats.
You lifted your shirt
and it exposed your shoulders and upper arms
which were filled with
colorful depictions of sports team logos
woven with tribals in black;
a red cartoonish bird wrapped around your left shoulder.
You were the leader of the pack of old friends who'd shown up
to go golfing with you in the middle of this work day,
like spectres, like lost dreams.
They changed you into a person I never knew,
instead of the one I almost know.

Sandman's Sunrise

I slept hard last night -
straight through,
and dark, muffled.
My sleep was motionless,
deeply satisfying,
and yet I awoke foggy and unwilling to rise.
I fumbled for my phone,
determined to head it off at the pass -
shove the finish line out a ways,
maybe another 30 delicious minutes
of swaddling in down puffiness.
I burrowed in and fell hard back into slumber.
Asleep Me panicked a bit,
worrying more than half-awake Me -
this round of rest was restless,
and I launched into a dream
stitching together the remnants of
the previous day and the worries newly born.

Self Mastery

I rocked myself to sleep last night
with a lullaby of you
on my fingertips

Madonna

Today you are a lost little boy.
Climb into my lap -
I will stroke your back and whisper tales
of a superhero I once knew.
His mind was as vast as a universe -
it was his shield, his weapon, his nourishment.
Not quite omniscient,
but somehow nearly omnipotent,
he deftly maneuvered the whims of his enemies, his suitors, his subjects.
He was gentle and gentlemanly,
powerful and empowering -
effortlessly guiding us all toward higher grounds, brighter lights.
Your body aches from the strain of carrying the world on your back,
so I cradle you in my sky-sized embrace
and rock you to sleep.

Measurements

Sizable -
the word rolls around on my tongue,
a placeholder for the part it modifies.
I want to taste it
assess its dimensions myself -
from one tip to
                           the other.
Grant me this one favor...?

Toni Morrison 1931 - 2019

No wonder all the poetry has left my soul today.

The world has lost one of its great flowing portals of light,

one of the greatest poetic prose-ists of our day.

She was a rich twilight glow,

at once warm and inviting –

and bruised with untold pain.

She let anguish and ecstasy flow through her soul

and out her fingertips.

She wove stories of breathtaking hardships

and small daily injustices,

triumphs and tragedies

into the fabric that made fictional worlds so vivid

I feel like I lived them myself.

I bet it wasn’t always easy, or painless.

I bet she could have given up,

or written less,

or more shallowly from within her wells of wisdom and compassion,

but she did not hide her light under a bushel,

and for that I am deeply grateful.