By Hilary Key
I dreamed my childrens’ childhoods before
I left (not them) the marital home
And in that dream, still cleaning found
An annotated picture book
Our notes our jokes
And so I laughed, blurry tears running then
Coalescing curiously into wandering white bugs
Furred freed pussy willow
Ermine vermin of mandibular pilgrimage
Skin crawling I crawled too;
I found them, followed them,
Amid the lost lambskin
Through odd mittens they wove their way,
Then left.
Till I saw that by their eschewal of it all they
Had brought me to an empty volume
White vellum-jacketed.
Each turned page a lavish cat’s tongue rasp
The frontispiece in densest ink said only
Allegory
And so I drive alone a golden road,
Light as dense as pollen
Is this my life
Or my coma?
children’s births,
absent husband,
my lost land and myself
a planet’s arc apart
Referred pain all, concocted in
A welter of wire and bedsores?
Wait. Up ahead a rotisserie chicken pumps his tiny legs;
Bondi muscle guy off to the beach.
So; no then
Touch the accelerator,
Press on.