By Stephen Mead

A dream of morning glories & ivy,
the house, an interior jungle
right to the ceilings, and still,
this is happiness:
the leafy vines with small sky parasols
all good as Jack’s stalk-magic
without a giant coming down …

In other slumbers buildings
are hurricane-bashed, & the highest floors
feel quaking earth. Elevator gates freeze
as not unknown beings meet with the intimacy
of another’s stubble against this ear,
these lips, like a ssh, & suddenly
there’s a scene-shift.

Go to speak but the language is wrong.
In the bowels of that station it is hard
to connect to just the right train.
When not locomotives then there are buses
or boats to navigate, but when without a license,
driving is by rote & one’s speed is fear.

Next comes dad’s peonies in close-up
placed on my mother’s desert-colored headstone.
In the first grade the last day of school
I gave a bouquet to my teacher.
Ants, as necessity, pushed open the pink bunches,
covered her desk, and I cried.

Rain fills the glass jars my father has placed,
such blue and rose reflections,
but his weathered hands are steady,
are sure as the bowling pins he used to set,
getting a nickel apiece, and hitchhiking home safe.

Ah, but that was another time & I wake
to this fan’s summer hush,
wishing, wishing.

Stephen Mead is a published artist, writer and maker of short-collage films and sound-collage downloads.