WATERMARK

. . . so perhaps a dream will do:

I have recently moved into a shabby apartment. People keep coming in — poor people, homeless people, mentally ill and physically disabled people — mostly women. They get in no matter how many times I lock the doors and windows. They are like moths, they are everywhere, they get in through the slightest opening.

I don’t know why they keep coming in. There is nothing here worth stealing; I’ve fallen on hard times myself and there is almost nothing in this apartment.

Waking, I realize: of course I can’t keep them out.

They are me.