The Dream
It wasn't you or your ghost that danced thru my dreams last night,
But it could have been.
The voice, the smile, the spectral fingers that brushed my cheek
And sent chills up my spine even in slumber.
The fine detail of your face faded long ago,
Still the similarity was almost palpable.
The dream tumbled and tripped,
Hazy images colliding with one another
Haunting, taunting,
Tugging at something intransient to cling to.
Most everything about you has drifted away,
Along with a thousand memories that followed along in your wake.
Yet a wisp of you stirred in the darkness,
A shadowy familiar sense,
Of what was, and could have been.
Upon awakening,
A slight shift of the covers beside me
Reminds me that what could have been
Forever pales next to what is.
*de - january 2004
