It’s a kitchen or a forest
in a coal town or the wilderness.
I am somewhere, at any rate,
but my mind is somewhere else.

There is dust or soil or ecosystems
where I sit and breathe and daydream.
I am far away while I sit still
humming an ancient song I just made up.

I hear conversations but am detached
from real time as my sense of time
is sideways so I can’t keep up
with navigating linear rivers of talk.

It is not day or night but there’s light
in a room in the woods on the floor
as I watch shadows tell stories
of other mes in parallel places.

I have devised intricate dreamscapes
with vines, gears, books, bread,
moving water, dynamic skies,
happy animals, and a sense of oneness.
We have a place there,
but I can’t tell anyone since it’s ridiculous.

I’d grab your hand and pull you
to sit with me for a spell
so we could watch people and clouds
move with the currents.
We could chat and laugh
or be quietly at home wherever we are.

In this place, I don’t need to know
anything or be anything other than yours.

There’s a pile of pillows and blankets
on the floor by the sofa.
The cup of tea is almost empty.
Leaves are blowing across the yard
as the sky seems to be trying out
different colors as night closes in.
The book sits on my lap
as I daydream for long Sunday minutes.
Fields, castles, thunderstorms, flowers,
all spin together, an intricate nonsense,
a place I can disappear to whenever,
as I spin, with no particular direction.
I remember things, some of which
have actually happened, and I can see
a lot of what could be, as if I can open
my curled-up hands and a dream
will fall out, complete and satisfying.

I’ve charted our paths
as best as I can
over years and mountains,
with few gaps of any importance.
Wincing at lies and stumbles,
laughing at foibles,
I don’t see Me or You but an Us
forming like a new galaxy.

Our stars have been dancing
a long time on their own
and somehow time has passed
in fluctuating persistence.

I have been playing with numbers
hoping it all adds up
to a map we can call home
though I know it may be
as transient as the best dessert,
sweet and quickly devoured.

I’ve not been able to hold onto time lately
which is a double/edged thing;
there’s no tight-squeezing-breathlessness
but there’s no grounding either,

so I feel ready to spark with the night
and ride air currents during the day,
sort of dangerously comfortable
loving with abandon.

What that means in the real world
is I walk in less of a hurry and move
with the comfort of a screen door
allowing in the summer breeze.

My use of metaphor has not improved
but I am so alive to the possibility
my skin will finally fit like tree bark
and that I can be happy letting go.