Bill Wolak – Ⅳ
To Let the Dream Work
I watch you fall asleep to remember
the exact color of dawn.
I see you dance in your sleep
embracing everything around you.
With the light on,
you’re asleep on the beach
legs wrapped around the sun.
When I switch off the light,
your body lapses into a green fever.
I stare at you for hours transfixed in the darkness,
the outline of your face barely visible
like the moonlit edge of an exhausted cloud.
I watch the fetal posture of your body
and wait,
knowing there is still time to sleep within your sleep,
to fall endlessly into your ever opening embrace,
knowing there is still time to work until I can dream,
and then let the dream work.
I study your eyes twittering wildly
and have memorized the deep passageways of your sleep,
so that I can hold you when you dream
and become that dream:
the nightmare that is always just finishing,
the life that is always just beginning.
I watch you fall asleep to remember
the exact color of dawn.
I see you dance in your sleep
embracing everything around you.
With the light on,
you’re asleep on the beach
legs wrapped around the sun.
When I switch off the light,
your body lapses into a green fever.
I stare at you for hours transfixed in the darkness,
the outline of your face barely visible
like the moonlit edge of an exhausted cloud.
I watch the fetal posture of your body
and wait,
knowing there is still time to sleep within your sleep,
to fall endlessly into your ever opening embrace,
knowing there is still time to work until I can dream,
and then let the dream work.
I study your eyes twittering wildly
and have memorized the deep passageways of your sleep,
so that I can hold you when you dream
and become that dream:
the nightmare that is always just finishing,
the life that is always just beginning.