Ten Thousand Dreams and Their Meanings

Ten Thousand Dreams and Their Meanings

Don’t dream of a telegram

or a telephone to be happy.

A birdcage brings wealth, if full,

but empty, the loss from elopement.

Caging a wild animal is a triumph.

If you join him in the cage, beware

of accidents while traveling.

Spit out a tooth, and it’s disagreeable

news. Lose all, and it’s famine

followed by death.

But I am the teeth and the bird

and the cage, I am the newsprint

lining the bottom,  I am the feathers

stuck to the paper, I am the news

no one can read. What dangerous journeys,

what treacherous roads?

If a hearse crosses your path,

if a key breaks off in the lock, if you eat alone,

if your daughter carries off the platter

before you are done,

if an eel washes up on the sand,

if an earwig, an echo, if eggs, or an elbow,

engagement, if gravel or gold.

Try to avoid a ship’s cabin, a ride in a cab,

a ride with a woman, or driving yourself.

I’m not worried about buttermilk,

neither the drinking nor the making into oyster soup

that will threaten my friendships.

Likewise, cleaning blackboards,

my hands wrapped in rags,

or walking in slippers in snow.

We see ourselves backwards, and sideways,

and married to strangers.

We look for ourselves in a wavy mirror,

a broken mirror. We break the mirror.

We see, in reflection, the lover

combing his hair, toweling his back.

We are paint on a canvas waiting to dry.

What choice as we sleep but to labor

and toil, wallow and worry, rend and complain.

Our garments are moth eaten, our hems hang,

our sleeves soiled. We assail. We refute.

We are handsome and worthy and broken.

We quarrel and haggle. We bargain.

We battle. We bore ourselves.

Our seasons are over.

Are ratings are in.