Accounted For

Dream Bardo

28 Dream Bardo A drought in the mouth and the cry of a monkey over miles of ocean eats through her dream —emergent, but awake in a dark cave. Having the will to keep her eyes open, there’s no blame harbored for birth, or the strawberry mark straddling the right breast, not an ounce for the man behind that porch room with the sunbaked shades. Her preference is for the memory of a spontaneous rush, spring perfume injecting itself into the bloodstream. Considering the gardenia—Consequence, she thinks, maybe having done something good for someone. And there—a heavy breath, a spirit’s hand grabbing inside her chest, not for fruit but for a flowering. He says His buds, plucking, then humming through the garden. He lets go, believes better of himself. She believes in a subterranean stream running through vertical shafts of light. Rising, she discovers the sanctity of grass, and her body sunbathing in the secluded center of a hand-tied hammock. ...