It’s a Dream Poem!

This is not a dream.

I am not at LifeWay
hanging blue and silver tinsel,
rearranging the wedding dresses;
or making decorations in the stock room
wary of the new management
with David sitting on a crate
in front of the large print Bibles
while I float behind the registers.
I am not at school and the Commons
has not turned into a field of grass
that we park our bikes next to
and my best friend and least favorite guy
lay down in it and stand back up with a baby.
There is no lion, no race up waterfalls,
no making of forts with lights in bushes.

This is not a nightmare.

I am not standing on a rise
watching a tornado sweep towards me;
I have not forgotten my best friend’s
or my mother’s birthday or
severed ties with anyone I really like.
I have not failed to write Dr. Hillard’s paper
and she is demanding to know where it is
while I say I thought it wasn’t due until Friday
but she says, No.
I am not falling off a ship and sinking
and drowning and not fighting but
giving up and closing my eyes
and breathing out.
There are no heights, no spiders,
no books with nothing written in them.

This is a soothing black disconnect
and I cannot feel my toes.

Memory Poem – The Blue Box

The Blue Box

The blue box is on the ground.

The grass is green and
the shrubs are green and
the light is green.

The blue box gleams
metallic from the ground.
I will not look at the blue box.

The church is red bricks
and brown tiles.
The spire stabs white
into the sky.

The blue box, tall as my knee –
the edges are sharp and bright.
I will not touch the blue box.

The ladder leans against
the brown tiles – steps to the roof.
A boy sits and draws and dreams.
A girl tries to follow but stops –
ladders are frightening.

The blue box is cold
and heavy. There is some
thing inside the blue box.

The horse is brown among
wild flowers. Yellow flowers
in long grass. He moves slow,
chomps slow under the noon
sky. Cautious in the green light.

The blue box has a
lid. A lid to open –
I will not open the blue box.

Black clouds behind the
horse. They roil, they boil,
they spoil for sport. Rain
shines weird in the brackish light.

The blue box is empty
on the ground. A turtle,
green turtle, is in my hands.

Rain in the trees – they
bend under it – flail
and swing in it. The
rain won’t come this way.

Turtle, green turtle –
sea-glass green turtle
in my hands.

The blue box remains –
empty, on the ground.