Dream Poem
I dreamt I wrote a cop show
about a special unit that goes after poems
that don’t make sense. In the pilot,
the lead detective meets a poet at AA
and goes back to her place to “write a villanelle,”
waking up the next morning to find her dead
beside him and the villanelle gone.
You really murdered that sestina
says the officer questioning an MFA candidate
while leafing through his thesis.
Maybe, says Good Cop, sitting on his desk,
but you could still save it if you’d just
put it in your own words.
Google Do’s & Don’t’s for writing great poems
suggests the assistant DA.
That just shows how much you know,
mutters the oft-ignored rookie.
My wife says no one wants to hear your dreams
but that has never stopped her.
Brooke said I should just hop on the next plane
to Hollywood. Michael said put your pen down
very slowly and back away from your desk.
Judy says it might make a good poem
but at this point it’s little more than a gag.
I wonder what my therapist would say
back when I had one — up in her shady
corner office, four mornings a week,
I must’ve been desperate to agree to that.
I wonder if those sessions did much good —
sure, she had some valid points:
my dad’s elusive attentions, my mom’s
smoldering needs — which hardly made me
unique. But at least she didn’t say
So how did the dream make you feel?
And since it made me feel
like writing this poem, then maybe it
wasn’t a total waste. Thank you,
whatever your name was, sitting there
mostly silent, recording my dreams —
which hardly offered answers.
But I remember you, my detective,
ushering me into your office, ready
to sift through clues, trying to help
me make sense of myself.
* * * * *
Cinnamon
My brother says he almost didn’t call
but they found something on his scan
that they’re thinking might not belong —
they hope to know more from the biopsy.
I’m watching a chipmunk out the window
crouching on a log to clean his paws
like someone bending down to say prayers.
While my brother waits for me to respond,
in that silence I see him shuffling
down the stairs as an infant and sucking
his thumb, which he removes with a pop
to ask if I’ll make the French toast again.
I tell him we’ve run out of cinnamon.