Another Creature: Poems

Dean Walters’ Dream

Dean Walters’ Dream And after you’d sobered up, did you find yourself bootless, barefoot, lost on your walk through our neighborhood park, trying to find East by the sun’s diagram, first frost of October under your calloused toes? And scared shitless—where was your leather jacket, the one you bought in Vegas for a song, broken so far into butter a woman could pour her face into your collar? And where were your favorite cap, your lucky darts? When the headache crowned, did you recall the gentle slope of our still-green lawn, the ash leaves curled to crisps of gold around your face? Were you thinking you’d rest five minutes before you knocked again, kicked in the flimsy screen to pound on the inside door—is that when you surrendered, pulled off your boots and socks, rolled the soft leather under your head and floated into strange language: where is my leafy smoke, red flannel moon, and oh where have you flung me this time? When we awoke the officers came and shook their heads at your empty boots and jacket, examined the crumpled check in your pocket signed Dean H. Walters. 6 Drunk must have thought he lived here, they surmised. But as you bled your dreams into our grass, we dreamt above you, twin clouds of enemy soldiers and old boyfriends tethered by dream bubbles to our slumbering heads. Halt you are under arrest produce your papers I love you more than Colt 45 And deep as you slept, we slept too, through your banging and howling, our sound machine churning out ocean-electric waves across fitful snoring, through gutturals slamming the stairwell shut and hammering staccato heels. Through Benny Wyzinski kissing and kissing my neck on the vinyl recliner. Where is my leafy smoke, red flannel moon, and oh where am I? 7 ...