Well…, yeah.

Right.

That’s what they say:

You come close to dying

and you get to see your life

flash before your eyes.

 

Hey

hey

hey hey hey

cliché

cliché

cliché cliché cliché.

 

In my case

the dream voice

gets out before I know it

and the visions have begun.

 

What’s flashing in my eyes is dreams.

Flashes of dreams.

Real things,

yeah,

but as dreams.

From life,

yes,

but in dreams.

 

In my daylife,

I feel something.

 

I look down.

 

There’s a knife against my side,

in the soft place.

I’ve got two bags of groceries

cradled in my arms.

I look up.

There’s a tire iron

two feet, maybe three,

above my skull.

 

Tall masked guy with the tire iron,

short masked guy with the knife,

and a third keeping watch about six feet away.

High,

low,

and one away –

I think they teach ‘em that in prison,

or maybe they learn it in Black boy school.

 

So,

I’ve got two bags of groceries and a knife in my right side,

except I feel it in my left

where the knife went in

all those wake-up-screaming nights ago 

in the dream that I kept having as a boy.

 

They say you never know what you’ll do

when the knife’s in your side

and

there’s a damn good chance

they’re right about that.

 

Me?

I looked down

and saw the knife

and the grocery bags flew.

To be precise,

I ran

and I screamed

and the grocery bags flew.

 

Five or ten steps of flashing dreams

and it dawns on my body just before it hits my mind –

There

is

no

place

left

to run.

 

I stop,

I turn around,

I make small talk born of desperation,

I offer ‘em my wallet.

 

Watcher Boy takes it.

 

Knife Boy leaves first.

Watcher leaves second.

 

Tire Iron stays poised awhile,

decides he doesn’t wanna break my skull this time,

and runs away.

 

And the dreams keep flashing –

a brick,

a bus,

a jacket.

 

Cops come.

 

More flashing –

Mr. Jones,

Mr. Thomas,

Mr. Collins.

 

And

from somewhere deep inside

yet

somehow

somewhere very far away,

I hear myself – 

my voice – 

ask

the cop,

“If they didn’t hit me,

can I still say I was mugged?”