Breathe Out Love

To C

I keep thinking of that dream. A rainy road dark wet and your long back. A snake more serpent than reptile, how it appeared in a room with a confident stealth. Drab carpet underneath. Green. The curve of Sophie's back just out of reach, for then. For now, and how, I leapt toward her and out of the dream and into my body. Soft, curved, a covering for a beating heart. Shhhhhh, you said, it's only a bad dream. Only. If only. There's loss and there's longing and I have held both, letting go.

What if you slept...

What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to heaven
And there plucked a strange and
beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flower in your hand
Ah, what then?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge