While Sleeping

 

 

I dreamed I was looking for something,

maybe hidden somewhere or lost

under the bed, under the stairs,

under an old address.

 

I dug through wardrobes, boxes and drawers

pointlessly packed with stuff and nonsense.

 

I pulled from my suitcases

the years and journeys I’d picked up.

 

I shook from my pockets

withered letters, litter, leaves not addressed to me.

 

I ran panting

through comforting, discomfiting

displaces, places.

 

I floundered through tunnels of snow

and unremembrance.

 

I got stuck in thorny thickets

and conjectures.

 

I swam through air

and the grass of childhood.

 

I hustled to finish up

before the outdated dusk fell,

the curtain, silence.

 

In the end I stopped knowing

what I’d been looking for so long.

 

I woke up.

Looked at my watch.

The dream took not quite two and a half minutes.

 

Such are the tricks to which time resorts

ever since it started stumbling

on sleeping heads.