Dreaming Of My Father On What Would Have Been His 97th Birthday


“Is this George Graham?”

“Well, who did you think it was, David?”

“Oh, you just sounded funny. I think
the connection’s spotty.
I’m on my cell phone.”

And it’s true—the first time after his death
I think to give him a call,
and I am on my cell, but that’s not
what makes me nervous.
I need to ask him something, something
important, but I can’t think
what that is.

So we chat as usual about weather here,
weather there, and it’s nothing unusual.
He doesn’t mention being dead,
so I don’t, either.





Dream Analysis


Good to see you again after all these years,
Uncle Jack--your indelibly wry smile
and bad-back stoop, and those
omnivorous eyes still wide open.

You looked remarkably fine
for a man who's been dead
more than thirty years. We didn't
say much, it's true, but that's not

because you're mist or because
the dream was brief as a wave
sinking into the lake shore sand.
I was tongue-tied as of old, of course,

but this time because I wanted
to ask if you'd seen my father,
if in whatever dark land or condition,
it's true there are reunions

and conversation beyond ash and smoke?
But I was too shy. Perhaps you'd forgotten
to look, or maybe death is as confusing
and chaotic as life, full of murk

and crowds and half-caught words.
So I shook your hand and smiled
and we agreed it had been a long,
long time. Too long, you sighed, as I woke.





Dream of Fame


Papers falling
out of folders,

words like leaves
in the dank air,

I am not ready
to give my speech.

The microphone buzzes
and cuts out.

My introducer lurches
against me, lifts

her sloppy glass of wine
to the spotlight

and says Well,
here he is, I guess. . . .

For a second I think
I'm shrieking

my eyes out. But it's
just feedback wail,

and when the house lights
go up, no one's there,

of course, just a pond
with pickerelweed

and dragonflies, then
the muddy slap
of a carp.