I used to have a friend who would ask, in all seriousness,
How are you dreaming? like that was something anybody
necessarily did. Like being made to dream meant you could.
It felt like he was asking after a dead friend.
I envied the time he had for these questions.
If not for the alarms, I might have had better answers.
If not for the constant interruptions to the dreams I meant to live inside,
I might have had better answers. Not enough, I would say,
but I remember one now.
In the dream there are two small eggs in a nest in one hand.
The other hand holds on tight to a bar above a narrow ledge.
Toes curling, too; I wait on that ledge between What and Never.
What and what? Who knows,
––eggs, nest, birds. Some imminent fall or drop implied,
I hold on. What’s next, death? An eagle? Rescue?
I wait, my grip slipping while my wrapped hand sweats.
Who else is watching these eggs? I want to know.
No answer comes, and I am still waiting, but that
was the end of the dream.
Still, the same answer applied to his original question,
and it was still not enough, and I was still envious of the
way that someone could take it for granted that they
might follow such visions to whatever dream message
they were aiming for before the alarm shot them,
execution-style, as we all lined up, backs against the concrete
wall and the relentless clock above us, holding
for the start of the next day, our tentative beginnings and
the open-air eggs we were forever trying to protect.