In My Sleep
In that dream of childhood,
there are your feet, which from my place
among the other feet, are all of you
that shows: you barefooted, courageous
on the cold tiles.
The dream I have had always,
that I followed a speaking deer
through the maple trees beyond the house:
these nights you are the quarry in the end.
And more: in dreams of gunfire
and silence, when every apprehension
wears a neighbor's face gone mad,
and all the discomforts of the day
become brass-plated embarrassments
set up in the school yard for children
to mock, you are the solitary child
taught not to stare; your obedience
distracts them. And dreams that deal
with nothing at all, that run me slowly
through the work I've done all day,
one nail driven an entire afternoon,
a plaster wall erected over seven nights
of astounding boredom:
I see you in a corner speaking,
and cannot hear the words. You take issue
with nothing I do; you are there as light
is in water. I deliver all the privacies
of sleep to you. Be careful of the one
that wants you gone. Be awake, alone,
and in another room, the night I try
for distance in my sleep.
--Robert Clinton