MY PERFECT LOST LIFE

I will be sad to leave the dreams,

the leafy neighborhoods

I live in after dark,

the places of great waters that

come gushing from the ground.

I will miss the flying and floating demons

I conjure, the small ones I blow gently

on their way, and even

the scary ones who’ve gone

soft like me over time. 

I will miss the dream

of my daughter running

upstairs with her little

friends ballooning the basement

ceiling where I live, our great

adventure following wires,

seeing where they end

and what switch powers what light,

the ornate house full of old

sheet music and wind,

our dream quest for strange objects

that melt when we close in on them. 

Where do these things collect?

as real in three dimensions

as the waking dream? 

Do the angels now and again

take us down to let us

visit our silly beloveds

during the darknesses

to come?

November 2008