Wake up, wake up, limbs bent
as brambles bedded and wed, lit high
with smoke and embers, seven long years
I have stumbled on my naked toes.

The man in my dream wears a serape,
and walks alongside a horse. With his mouth
he utters his name, but I am waking
before I can catch its scent.

My hands dig through covers,
the polyester and woolen earth heaved
into snow drifts, my memory of time
driven down into my skin’s cracked lines.

Whether or not I ever rise early enough
to see another’s chest facing mine,
dreams will snag with fire, visions in bid
for my attention; I could, dip a cup.

Swept up in the runic tellings, I might
ask for your name, might take your hands,
turn them over and over, searching
for colors in thrashing storms.

I might lay in this bed, with arms clasped
to my ribs, seeking forms inside my
closed eyelids, attempting to press my palm
along a belly, stretched in candlelight.