Fugitive Dream

Suppose you’re sitting in a church

with an old lover, watching a ceremony

from a pew that’s toward the back

and off to the side.

You stand, sit, kneel, chant, sing

and smile at each other. Pleased

with the ecumenical nature of things,

enjoying the light touches

that you exchange.

Then these people that you’ve never seen

break in and begin to do away with the priests

and other members of the congregation

in the most brutal of ways.

You turn to your lover for reassurance,

to make sure that it’s just a dream

And that the two of you can go on watching and playing.

But no one is there.

And you run out of the church

to save yourself and inform others

about the massacre.

Flying down the streets of the city where you were born,

pounding on doors and looking for help,

secretly pleased with your speed and agility.

And when you find someone who will let you in,

there’s your lover on TV, giving an interview

about how you seemed like a nice person

and about how no one could have expected

these atrocities from you.

So now you are heading for the river, looking for escape.

You live incognito for what seems like at least a year,

until you try to cross back over the river

and are apprehended by Federal Marshalls and more TV cameras.

Then you wake to the heat and touch

of the person that you love now, who was not the person in the dream.

Your lover’s face is soft and sleepy.

You’re quiet and penitent about what you’ve done.