On Waking after Dreaming of Raoul

If Freud was right and dreams of falling are
dreams of having fallen then you must have been
the beautiful declivity of that hill, Raoul,
the speed was so seductive and the brakes so
unreliable, and so intricate and so abstract
that when I touched them they squeaked like a jar lid
coming loose and I was embarrassed, but not sad,
at being the one flat wheel that bumped down the hill
in an unsteady gulp of denial--oh no oh no oh no--
until I woke up chilly, damp, my breath unsteady.

In order to recover I sit at the desk studying the Order
of the Holy Ghost Retreat and Old Age Home
until dusk comes down the street elm by elm, here
where they've managed to cure them with a tincture
so poisonous the leaves, though living, are frail
and blanched. I think of you, Ruby Flores's
half-brother and a thief and a cook
Because what good is it anymore, pretending
I didn't love you; after all these years you must
be jailed or dead, and it is a relief to give up
reticence which as you once said is merely
impetuosity held tightly in check.

Over the gold swells of sunset lawns the old
men come rolling in their iron chairs, pushed
around by nuns, their open mouths are O's
of permanent dismay. Far away the stars are
a fine talcum dusting my mother's one good black
dress, those nights she gunned the DeSoto
around Aunt Ada's bed of asters while you shortened
the laces of my breath. Despite the nuns, despite
my mother and my own notions of how bad girls
end up educated and alone, the door opens and you

walk in, naked, you, narrow and white
as the fishing knife's pearl handle, and you kiss me
until my resolve grows as empty as the dress
from which I step, both brave and willful.
I loved you, although I didn't know it yet,
anymore than these old men on the dole
of some nun's affectionate disdain
knew that they would end up poor,
mortgaged to a ghost, and living in a place like this.

from Hotel Fiesta by Lynn Emanuel

The White Dress Homage to Sharon Stone The Dig
Inventing Father in Las Vegas Like God,

On Waking after Dreaming of Raoul

BIO BOOKS READINGS