not that you had come from other beds
back to mine, or gone from mine to others,
just that something in your heart had stopped
i willed myself awake to find you still beside me
it was just a dream, i thought,
yet when i turned to kiss you, in your eyes
i saw that you had ceased to love me.
i willed myself awake a second time
to find myself alone, as i have been
these many months, but did not know if it
was terror or relief i felt, and whether
dreams unfold the past or make the future plain
i dreamed that you had ceased to love me,
and know when i see nothing in your eyes
i can't dream myself awake a third time.
[david solway]
