RECURRING NIGHTMARE RESTRAINED (FOR NOW) IN A SONNET
I dream I am sitting in the backseat
Of an empty bus, holding a keyboard
In my lap upon which I am playing
A hundred different tones of silence.
The keys are delicious to depress.
No one is driving. And then I am
A lepidopterist in a meadow where
I’ve been told I can find a butterfly
I’ve been looking for all my life.
The keyboard has become a net in which
My hand is snagged, my own hand
Looking at me through the mesh
In the terror in which captive things
Look at what has caught them.
I dream I am sitting in the backseat
Of an empty bus, holding a keyboard
In my lap upon which I am playing
A hundred different tones of silence.
The keys are delicious to depress.
No one is driving. And then I am
A lepidopterist in a meadow where
I’ve been told I can find a butterfly
I’ve been looking for all my life.
The keyboard has become a net in which
My hand is snagged, my own hand
Looking at me through the mesh
In the terror in which captive things
Look at what has caught them.