As my dreams were compromised before they became themselves
having begun this one in a dream that began before me, 
being born out of one dream into another I simply don't know 
one dream from the next, and uncertain of where I am 
or who is dreaming even now I cannot tell myself apart 
from what is real, and if this weren't enough of a shock 
I dreamed up another and took on the dream of a daughter 
and when she woke, her head erupting from the dream of my body, 
I divided like an amoeba, my dream slipping 
its twin into her hand where she carried it around 
as a toddler as if holding a doll by its hair and here 
in the dream of twelve she keeps it stuffed in her back pocket 
where she sits on it or takes it out like a wallet loaded with change, 
thinking it is her own, and at night when we sleep 
our dreams slip out and meet between us in the hallway, 
reading our thoughts like a plot and then quietly rewriting the story, 
sinking back into our heads before we wake up 
so when we open our eyes we feel that somehow 
something is different.

		
for Sangye Land        
from ‘Lovebird’ (an unpublished manuscript)