WATERMARK

This room, its comforts, soft
sheets, firm bed,
the white
noise machine pretending
to be the sea — one dog
curled
at your feet, the other twitching
with her own nightmares

on her own bed — ceiling fan
casting dust & air
on the
Asian silk carpet.

The bed clothes are obstreperous.
They
wrinkle & ball & refuse
to smooth themselves.
The better-than-a-man
pillow
isn't. You fall, briefly, & walk
through narrow
rainy streets.
Your cloak billows & clings
in all the wrong
places.

This wrap, these streets,
this starless rain, all
a
clumsy, incompetent lover
sucking & blowing
stalking you
into dementia.
You wake. For a moment
you know who you are.
But
the rope is cut
& you drift again.

The shutters permit
the moon
to leak through. Books
on the shelves whisper,
pass
notes back & forth,
each adding a cite, a line
until the
final document
is impossible to decipher.

It makes no sense,
even
the books don't know
which wrote what word,
what
warning, what
admonition. The sea still
waves & washes.

The
cat quietly enters,
sits and watches
as cats will do, before
deciding.
She will wake you.
She will bring you back
to a bright morning
with
clear, sharp boundaries
& obligations. You will
remember
who you are.