dream

Dr. Sexson, looking like the Wizard, is telling me something important, but he is fading and I can't quite hear ... "pay more attention to..." I turn over and go back to sleep to try and hear the rest. I'm in the Beartooths with my father. We're grazing like bears on the huckleberries, stopping to listen for real bears, then clambering down to a small stream for a drink. He shows me the horsetails ! and how to use them to shave oboe reeds. He shows me the mayfly casings on the stone cliffs and tells me the story of their short lives.

I wake and weep. He's been gone ten years. I remember his anger at my grandfather, my husband. I remember my mother's fury when I got lost in a book or at the piano. I remember reading in the green chair near the window and his gentle hand on my head as he passed by.

dream

I'm trying to hide money from my mother ... bills ones and fives, I push them into crumpled newspaper and shove it all to the back of shelves stacked to overflowing with other papers. When I go to retrieve it, I can't find it. It’s gone. Madly searching. Gloria shows up and says not to worry, I should go with her to a party at Chico (only it’s not) It’s night, many people, all strangers, music, talk, labyrinthine halls and rooms. I'm sitting at a low table in a small room ... two women and myself smoking opium (only it’s not) ... small dabs like soft hashish but in odd colors like oil paints ... heated, inhaled, a slow smiling gentle floating high. A man behind me, his hands light on my waist, a great soft dark voice, whispering "do you want to dance" ...we do, close, erotic, delicious... “I don’t like cheerleaders” as he disappears ... hoping to find him among the rooms, but I'm in a crowded gallery with lots of small art on the walls that i do not like ... I see Gloria again, she laughs and says his name is Isaac ...


when I woke the Beatles' "Help" was on the TV ... PBS 3 AM