In a dream before the dawn
I saw my wife as a wrecked ship
lying on tidal flats.
The slanting shadow on the wet sand
did not move,
while I wandered like a dog
along the smooth dry surface of my wife’s starboard.
Out of the dream, I walked downstairs,
peed, looking through the toilet window
at the flakes of the snow
caught and trembling on a spider web.
A strange boy was in the kitchen
talking to me in a matter-of-fact tone,
“There is nothing scary about dying. When the tide goes out,
people go back and forth”.
He then walked into the shimmering of the ground glass door
leaving on the floor his wet footprints.