Last night I dreamed. Dreamed I was Clarissa
instead of Mrs. Ramsay by the sea. I woke several times
to have reflective moments of being
while gazing to the horizon, the horizon of the long flat mattress,
at the thin blue line of the ocean.
Then back to sleep between the pages of sand
left on the beach by the lighthouse. The sunburnt summer days
receding and receding with each sunset. All the while
I’m still Clarissa,
criticized Clarissa, while asleep at my home in the city.
A gale wind blowing in over the edge of the balcony, a fog,
thick with feet, pouring over the railing and cascading
down along the floor, tossing the leaves of house plants yearning
for morning sun and cool fresh air; only to go back to sleep. Each hatch
battened down and only one clay pot cracked to the ground.
Nothing will be lost, all will wake up, so all will be fine.
Go back to sleep, slip between the pages of the book
to the summer-burnt days on the beach where
the heat stays on your skin all through the night.