Analysis

In my dream I was at sea.

There was a boat, only

I wasn’t on it. I was leading it –

Then the prerequisite

drowning: I woke

to another dream, the nature of which I can’t remember

being now fully awake.

The dream seemed to me a precise translation

of vision hitherto masked

by the skein of the self: the absurdity being both form 

         and revelation.

The absurdity and the fear

anchoring the self to the past, the past a dead thing –

This dream, I made a point of telling it to my mother

dicing meat in the kitchen, making lunch.

It’s her day off; my father’s on his own

at the clinic, prescribing remedies

to those who seek to be cured. 

Was there light? She asks, fingers deft with the knife.

A lamp was shining from the wharf.

Was it bright?

As bright as it could be, being the sole source of illumination.

Was the water calm?

I remember wind on bare skin.

Were you alone?

I was silent; my dream was silent –

Were you alone?

I wasn’t rescued. 
But that was then.