when my husband can't sleep

When my husband can't sleep
and I dream;
scientists experiment with
surgically grafting a man
to a woman's body
and she dies, and
he is left a cretin.

When my husband can't sleep
and I dream;
we are the last liberals
in the country.
Our escape to safety
is long and trippy
with shortcuts through medical labs
getting lost in suburban malls
walking miles in the marsh
after a wrong turn in a hotel lobby.

When my husband stirs,
I dream we're
touring a Buddhist monastery.
I dream
young gang boys,
bored with tired teachers
and vastly intelligent
conspire to destroy the school
so they can be left alone to
teach themselves trigonometry.
I dream Arnold Schwartzenegger is offended
that I touch him deliberately on his forehead
in front of his small daughter.

When my husband rises,
announces he's going to watch some TV,
I reach for his arm as he leaves
then ride a chestnut horse into
an old farmhouse,
the one I believe
my grandfather grew up in.

When my husband can't sleep
And I dream;
I lose him in a crowd
on a cruise on the Seine.
I search endlessly for a private toilet.
I find unpacked boxes from a long ago move.
I remember the Buddha's sixth perception:
Allow the present to be.




lila.p.levy, June 2009