Brothers, last evening I dreamt
I was giving our long-departed grandparents

a ride in a golf cart, in Tucson, after sundown, 
with the purpose of going across town 

to pick up their daughter, our dear mother, 
our progress impeded by a bustling street festival, 

full of sun-kissed people and marmalade colors, 
music — so much cheerful music — smoke 

and the smell of meat cooking on outdoor grills, 
stoic mariachis and drunken revelers, 

street dogs fighting over scraps in alleyways, 
the feeling overall, from the stops and starts 

and twisting though the crowd,
of being on a carnival amusement.

I awoke to a bird singing 
among the thorns of the holly tree.

I’m afraid that this means
she is not long for this world.