Clean Slate

And in my dreams, I talk.
I move my lips and you understand
when I describe the mist
hanging above me, the shape of it---
that is your smell. It's you
I carry from your bedclothes
and discarded socks.

When you go there's a gnawing,
holes inside large enough
to fall through,
a world of longing to scent you
through all the prickling strangeness,
empty stretches.

In my dream we keep
the same time.
In my dream, you stay.

Walking together,
the world -- all of it -- belongs to us.
I belong to you.
Because all the universe to me is you.
I can tell you this and we talk
for lifetimes in my Sleeping.

In my dream you say "go,"
and I run. My body picks up
some far moving thing.
I am after it, looking back
to call you.
The words escape
and fall,
one, then another,
useless on my lips,
immovable black lines.
Mute, I wake. I return to you
because you said,
because you asked.

Neva Kares Talladen