43. In Dreams Begin Impossibilities

Slip & sleep
& sleeping

there is no difference between
these versions of falling

what makes sleeping a dream differs
from one minute to the next

a gauzy curtain might admit
a sprig of heat that might grow

into something

air like airedale
in a sudden swirling
up

almost the quelling of heat

from a sleeping
a light
a computer
left run
ning right
through the night

what words come
from what dreams make
of what life’s lived
in those temporary states of wakefulness

walk out of it
and into the woods
horsed and riding
motion like muscle
flowing

the wind in it
of it
or the settling of wind
into stillness
and the wait

for there is always
something there

you wait for it
and watch

you watch for it
and wait

it has something to do with time.

the sound of snow deepening
piling high
is always somewhere there

the ground remembers it
and roots
even something you recall
a sound not too loud
not as loud as heat

still wet with significance

no way out
without leaving tracks
hoofprint footprint
pad of dogfoot
impression of boot
white but written
on and those
temporary words
that snow erases

we cannot move without writing.

but snow erases nothing now
except the memory of snow

nothing cold in this heat
nothing cold in this heat
the mouth yearns for water that fills the air
the tongue yearns for water that fills the room

nothing cold in this heat
unrememberable snow
and a dream of cold
within which the body
can make its own heat

and a dream of cold white snow

and fingers out
and up

single snowflake on the tip of each