Last Dream

Out of a motionless infernal

shudder and clang of steel on steel

as wagons moved toward the eternal,

a sudden silence: I was healed.

The stormcloud of my sickness fled

on a breath. A flickering of eyes,

and I saw my mother by my bed

and gazed at her without surprise.

Free! Helpless, yes, to move the hands

clasped on my chest—but I had no

desire to move. The rustling sounds

(like cypress trees, like streams that flow

across vast prairies seeking seas

that don’t exist) were thin, insistent:

I followed after those vain sighs,

ever the same, ever more distant.