In the dream you have written me a letter,
but the only word I can read is Until.
This is a connector word, a block placed
in the line between the lead-up and what happened.
This is not your neighborhood anymore.
I’m keeping track of the flowers each week:
the riots of hydrangeas, trees filled with white
clusters of ideas. By the gas station, a mother
lifts up her son to touch the dogwood petals.
On a different day I pass gardenia bushes
and remember the way my stepmother
would take a single bloom and suspend it
in a dish of water that she would leave
in my bedroom. One of my first lessons in beauty.
Or longing. Today I toured a historic home
where each room had a laminated sheet of paper
with no story, just an inventory of the décor,
its sources, the years, the significance. I wanted
a tie that bound it all together, some meaning.
I kept passing mirrors and taking pictures of myself.
I wanted to send them to the man I am in love with,
who says he likes me, who is not mine, my secret.
Until. If he sees me. I keep giving him tests to pass.
Opportunities to prove me right: that something
about him is wrong. Until I’m back here,
with my cynicism. A tree has fallen into the river
and the current combs through the branches
like fingers through hair. At night I wait for fireflies
and bats, feel my mind unspool. Until I’m in bed
again and dream of a baby, a porch swing,
people I used to know who say things I can’t hear.