Last night I dreamt I stayed home
and grilled steak.
A dream that plowed on hours,
grilling and grilling, because,
last night, it seems,
in that magical nether world
where I’ve flown and have been king,
where I’ve hunted assassins
and shot through space
to chair the interplanetary council,
where I’ve held down all sorts
of odd jobs: spy, demagogue,
failed comedian, construction worker,
some kind of time-traveling salesman
hawking vacuums from the future;
where I wander, omniscient,
through the hotels of memory
and now and then step lightly
into some room to grieve,
where I’ve won the Olympics
and played in Prince’s band
and once, at gunpoint,
cut open the belly of a dog,
I staggered into this playground
of illumination, this fevered palace of regret,
the one place where all is possible
and nothing is judged, and decided
I couldn’t beat the BBQ
under the tree in my backyard,
where the squirrels dance the branches,
and I once saw a possum
scurry beneath the neighbour’s shed.
