dreaming

every so often the lamp sparks!
   the room dims;
and the eyes close,

letting in the waves when they sluice
   and slide,
   gently-
so as not to awaken...

the feet lift off the floor 
   and never do settle back down
the hair is the sea
   a sometimes seaweed
   in otherwise dry sheets;

the body does not lie-

and it does not stand-

it floats in the perpetual buzz
   of wax, stars and border times;
it ceases its self-perpetuation,
   that rooting of one action to the next,
binding now to no living thing

once, i saw it tapping across the night
   (a congealed slap of wet mud);

I decided to be there, and that night

I was never on Earth

climbing beyond the light of a galaxy
   or the distance of various Earths:

once I was dipping up and under the lip
   of a flooded road in static and teal moons,

then I wandered the old neighborhood
   and slurped honey from the well of a wood
   that was never there,

other nights, homely roads huffed and chinned
   into mountains
   and slopes that i sang and skated
up and down;

last night, i found a new bridge,
   pulsing with a mahogony shop sprouting
   violins and cellos like spring blooms!

but finally-
if even an infant crack of Earth light
   webs through the eyelid;

if the breath quickens even one pace
   beneath the eyelid thrum;

then the stubborn tug of flesh memory
   binds the other worlds
just out of the grasp of night skin;
awaken.