We have dropped down the rabbit hole
once again. Reality distorts
and white rabbits cavort
with wristwatches big as heads.
When Noah seizes, we watch
our son’s rosebud lips turn blue,
no lingering cat’s smile here,
feet curl, petal-like paws.
Is there an apt metaphor
For watching a child
unable to draw breath, chew
his cheeks raw, leak a trail
of bubbled spit on the pillow? Where
has he gone? I hope a field of flowers
greets him, and a song
he knows whispers in his ear.
In my dream, there
is the peaceful lake, an idyllic
spot of pastoral comfort. We lie
back in repose, dressed in our best
Pale colonial dress, a scene
From a Forster novel. A man
languidly tosses a stone
into the lake and the stone
Drops out of sight, but the ripples
remain, floating outward
like a linen flicked and draped
over tables set for that night’s party.
A motor car guns through
The perfect silence, an ominous
Sign of a future bedecked
In soot and interrupted by
discordant noise. I wake.
On what false hope do I hang my dream
On those days when seizing
Is just as foreign as a game
Of cricket on the lawn, a fantasy
Of famed authors with slicked-back hair
and a lazy cigarette between lips?
Today, he is pale, blue half moons
Beneath his large round eyes.
Eyes so big, I think they must see
through the world. When he seizes,
his head thrown back, eyes flick up,
perhaps trying to solve the mystery
of his brain, get a look
under the hood. His mouth works
like it does when he is settling
down for sleep, holding
His blanket against his lips,
just as it did when that mouth
fed from me in those most contented
First months of motherhood. Perhaps
he is at peace during a seizure
despite the mad Rubik’s cube sorting
his brain does in reorganization.
I would like to believe.
We need no holes to escape
down, no fantasies of a quiet
foreign countryside. Just the comfort
of the mundane will do
nicely. I find the absence
Of dreams my only Kubla Khan.
Rough Drafts Only 