The Dream (or A Canopy of Sorts)

In the dream, I lay on cool sheets in an air conditioned house. It is so cold that my balls threaten to retreat entirely, protect their purpose. My skin, head to toe, is its own compress. There [is] 20 pounds less of me and, while still too soft, I don’t cringe at my reflection. The house is immaculate and I eat sushi off of the floor. The humidor is full of Cubans. The liquor cabinet is stocked with Makers and Woodford. The automobiles are freshly cleaned, shoed, filled, and tuned. They start their own engines just to hear themselves purr. Mark Knopfler has scored the never-ending moment and his guitar floats the walls and ceiling, mournful and wistful. I quote poetry by William Matthews, Raymond Carver, and Walt Whitman and my pitch is dead on. In the dream, everyone loves everyone and I laugh and say out loud, “That’s a bit much, eh?” And suddenly, I ride stingrays in the shallows of the Gulf. When I look up, the beach is empty. The feat has been my own and I like that. I am in a slow freefall and embrace the fact that I have never disappointed anyone. I am in a black and white slideshow. There I am at the summit of the Sydney Harbour Bridge humming No Worries, Mate. I am at Fenway Park, the buzz of the faithful slowly electric, and then the crack of a bat and then thunder. I lay in the cool grass beneath a teeming Japanese Maple, the all of it a canopy of sorts. It is melodrama (of course) and not. I am in Astoria and Key West. I am drinking cold draught beer and then telling dirty jokes to no one in the French Quarter. I draw my own caricature. I am wearing long shorts and slides and then nothing as I walk the length of the Natchez Trace. I stop at a park bench and have a drink with Hemingway and Charlie Chaplin. Hemingway talks of Brett Ashley and Chaplin of City Lights. I look up and they are gone.

When I awake, Emerson is there in my crook. It is still 87 degrees in the room. But I am refreshed. For the first time in years I am not exhausted. I get up and walk to the kitchen. I stand at the window as the sun comes up.

Potter the cat winds her way in a figure eight between the space between my bare feet.

I don’t even know she is there.