dream one: a prose poem

you visited my dream. stood in the kitchen plundering the cabinets, found a pack of ramen, and asked, can i have this? dry chicken flavored noodles hung limp in your hand. confused i think, but you are dead, yet there you were, grinning wide, shaking your dreadlocked head at the statement i never said. you look at me, love like a small child’s in your eyes. but you were quiet as a tomb. i had one question. i asked you, “are you here?” 

you, my boy whose ashes sweep the depths beneath the gown of a waterfall. my now sleeping, never waking, slumber taken boy. are you here? i reached for you, but you had passed. way beyond my grasp.

you strolled down the hall, ignoring your brother on the sofa, and i, as desolate as a burial ground, asked my only living son if you’re here. but he was silent, so i rushed behind you, not ready to lose you once again. “are you here?” the words chase you down, but they faded in the air, and like a last breath they were gone.

i could not get to you, so close. you’re weren’t even a ghost, headed to your sister’s room. that endless hall. how many miles long? you were out of my reach, you, looking solid like a rock of a boy, thrown to a shore far away from me. “is he here?” i asked your sister. but she was quiet as death. then you were gone. 

i bolted awake, bursting through the sepulcher of sleep, my hand flying to my racing heart. this gesture of a mother bereft who has lost her son, even in her dreams. 

and you were not here.