My real life can be mundane,
very simple, quiet,
yes, boring.
But in my dreams,
oh yes, in my dreams,
I live large.
I can fly,
not high above the ground, mind you,
but by running and diving forward,
I can fly low, rising just above the traffic,
never stopping at a red light,
not to get anywhere in particular,
but just to enjoy the feeling of flight.
In my dreams,
sometimes I see people I haven’t seen in a long time,
or speak to people who have died.
Sometimes I have conversations with random animals in English,
although once a tortoise greeted me in German:
guten tag!
In my dreams,
I have opened doors into magical worlds.
One time, I opened a random door at a subway station
and walked into a Parisian café,
where Ernest Hemingway motioned me over for a whiskey,
and Gertrude Stein said to me:
Thank you for letting me read one of your poems;
keep trying, you have promise,
but don’t quit your day job.
There’s no money in poetry.
In my dreams,
I have been to scary places,
places close by, and faraway places.
I have woken up in a panic, sweating,
having to repeatedly remind myself that it was just a dream.
It isn’t real.
It isn’t real.
And I have had dreams
that have been so delightful,
so magical,
that, upon awakening,
I have pleaded to be let back in.