author's note:
On a couch at the other side of the coffee house, four young people sat, talking, laughing.
Because they could have been a million miles away, I wrote this story about them.
SHE TURNED
We don’t know how but--
she turned black.
She went off somewhere in silence--
maybe to an ice hotel, a warm cave,
a spiked grave--we don’t know where
but
when she resurfaced,
she was black
and pink and green.
The color was not on her
flesh or clothes.
But curtains billow as the house
bellows–you know something’s going on inside.
She must have finally caved--
behind the smile, behind the laughter,
behind the glossed eyes.
Now she seemed to be
kneeling
head bowed,
kneeling at a dark blue stream--
not gazing down at her reflection,
but enjoying the reflection of the water
on her skin.
She’d seemed distant before, without trying to be distant, but
now she stood on the sun and sat on the moon--
to be loved by someone so far away
made me feel as if
I was lifting from my chair.
I wanted to know where she’d been, where
she’d gone--why her steps now glowed
in the night--
but
the moment we sat down at the table
alone–she lived alone--
I found myself speaking English and she
spoke--I don’t know--something that sounded
like English but was nothing I’d ever heard before.
Even “How are you?” rang as if
she meant it, as if she understood
what I’d failed to tell myself.
Yet even with her depth to help me
I still had too many limitations:
I could not bring myself to ask
how she’d turned black
and pink and green.
And purple.
Then--
in my moment of greatest opportunity--
I fell asleep.
But in my unconsciousness, another part of me came to fore,
took control and I heard myself say,
“What happened to you? You’re different now.”
She smiled and answered easily--as if the question
had not been a stab, as if I had not torn myself open
by asking--
“Sometimes you just have to go somewhere else. And if you weren’t really wrong before--
if you meant it without feeling it--sometimes
you can return and live and talk as you once did
except that living and talking in that way won’t hurt you anymore. You can
love and listen from a million miles away.”
She told me more, more, but
I could only remember--can only hold--
that much
of the dream.
What I heard and felt was so strong,
I haven’t yet dared
to fully awake.
© 2005, Michael R. Patton
dream steps blog
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email: michaelpatton@lycos.com
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