What I Was Called in Sleep

I wake in the debris of dreams, lamb
bones and cobalt bottles marked
with Victorian remedies, a scrap
of woven red cloth, shard of a dish.

Where do they come from, the dancers
who whirl in my brain like tops, 
clockwise like water down a drain. 
I remember the drum throbbing. 

I almost remember the music
sung by snakes and willow trees, 
I almost remember the name
they called me in that place of reeds. 

Now I am cast on the stony
shingle of morning, bereft
dragging skeins of unraveling
meaning that dim like beached

jellyfish and diminish into
nothing but a little stickiness
in the back of my mind
as the day irons me flat. 

Next - Andrea Potos

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