Dream

I want to tell the story of my dream

again how I was walking 

in the dust 

and dusk had fallen 

about me and I approached 

an outpost which seemed 

like a future Portland 

in a state of desolation 

where the last stragglers of 

some apocalypse were 

gathering in their small groups.

I felt then on my back

that I was carrying my possessions 

what I needed for survival or

what I had been able to

seize from the fire when

all other things were abandoned 

and looking down at my body

my legs and feet 

they were recognizably my own.

The place I had come to 

seemed to be a place of shelter

maybe a past gas station or

convenience store emptied and

transformed into a stopping point

but as I looked 

into the wounded

and guarded faces of the other 

people who also journeyed

I did not feel that in sleeping 

I would be safe

or that my few possessions 

would still be in my arms 

upon waking and so

I stood in the dark room

full of cots and hesitated.

Then a figure spoke to me

saying, “I will protect you.”

and I recognized their face and

in the dream we lay down 

together 

chaste and fully clothed and 

they held me in their arms 

and I slept 

because for the first time

in years of memory I was safe. 

Upon waking I thought nothing 

of the dream except that

it was a funny one and only 

as hours ticked by and poems

started to trickle out of me

and then to rush out in a torrent 

did I feel how much 

one night

one dream 

had lifted a great darkness from me

had healed the deep recesses 

of my heart where I thought 

I had been abandoned forever

but the gods chose differently

and sent to me 

a messenger.