POETRY

Your Cameo in my Dream

A visitation

Your cameo in my dream was a welcome surprise

we shared affection like old friends, taking each others hand

your black nail polish was very “you” without being too goth

Musing openly at the miracle of our children and parenthood

you hovered over me ethereally

so that I could see the bottoms of your shoes

Stuck to them were flyers and business cards

with the names and addresses of places

attesting to the stops on your journey

like so many luggage stickers

As we spoke, I felt the heaviness of your earthly travails

but mostly I felt your nearness

and was comforted by a sensation that you were well

As I woke, I questioned the continuation of my journey

which seems borne out of stubbornness

a rigid sentence of loneliness and alienation

begging closure and completion

that has taught me little more than that

the world is a place of selfish indifference, if not hostility

A lesson you learned earlier than I

leading to your homeward return

yet all the closeness you craved

for the security of family warmth

your demons stayed close

imposing themselves in your every step

until you drew your last breath

Now my journey feels becalmed and overstayed

but I wake each day

blindly putting one foot in front of the other

groping for meaning and authenticity

finding little other than that

as I collide with the world

I feel a vague formation confirming

that I did not change for the world

and was impervious to its mirages of legitimacy

I envy you your innate knowledge of home

a place I have yet to find

a sense of my own belonging

to a place and people

or is it that I know where home is

but refuse to return incomplete and unformed

aspiring to an unattainable standard

of the prodigal son only fulfilled

when realized, dead or defeated

Every day I look in the mirror

I see survival and endurance but no evolution

my flower awaits, withering and un-bloomed

So my wandering continues till I find

that place that lets me grow in

ways I only see in my dreams

I await your next nocturnal visitation

with a hopeful warmth

that my day in the sun will come

and that when I turn around

you’ll be there if only fleetingly

acknowledging that we dared this journey

separately but together