14/30 - In the Dream

I

In the dream

you sat across from me

table nice restaurant

some city

your hair died blonde

free and bouncy

skin flawless decade of stress

worry erased from your face

newscaster bright

I asked how you were

meaning that and also how

you the marriage was

and you said great

I believed it

because you did

II

At coffee

Radha says:

a relationship should make your life

easier, not harder

I said:

Oh wow really

seems I’ve been doing it all wrong

III

In the dream

Jaha says she has something for me

Come follow her

We go outside amidst children playing

in a landscape of dirt, twigs, and broken concrete

She tries pulling fabric from her bag

We never finish this gesture

We are inside kitchen

I am cooking her food

She says:

I had something for you

IV

In the restaurant

across from you

I wondered

how you had finally gotten it right

how years of it all being so wrong

arrived at your happiness

it seemed a strange trick

it wasn’t you

It wasn’t

it was a dream

But in the dream

you were happy

and inexplicably blonde

I was happy for you.

c. e. amato

4.11