I awoke from a dream

I awoke from a dream I fought to keep.

Pine needles and skin. Muted shafts of daylight.

Summertime. Perpetual summer. Pinpricks of perspiration.

You were there.

Your presence lingers still, despite the expanse,

the outstretched gulf

Always my familiar. Our throats tight with restraint,

no cataracts of words permitted to rupture; we come close

Not believers in destiny, adamant disbelievers

briefly colliding in near randomness, no why, 

carried by the currents.

Airport concourse, moss-covered boardwalk,

a record store - before they went defunct.

Shifting of pressure, clap of thunder,

sudden electromagnetic confluence

Then nothing for months, years.

Vaguely resigned to a fate we deny but

remember again

with just the faint smell of rain on humid air,

the sweep of a cumulonimbus.

I awoke from a dream I fought to keep.

You were there.

- kc