Homecoming

I’ve replaced you pitifully many times in rooms, in beds where I can hear people saying, “This man is dead.” But I’m not — I’m only sleeping, only resting, being very still.

And that’s not an excuse. My very young nephew asked when a deer was shot in a movie: “Is that deer sleeping?” And I said ‘yes’ for his own good.

When you’re very still, the landscape stretches and reveals new things — monoliths, previously dots on the horizon, loom and threaten to crush or force you to run; smells mean everything and, as efficient as algebra, can move you about in sleep as if they were pack animals bringing you of their own accord, by their own route in dead night to a green spot, to water, divining rods itching in your skull.

Thrusting my head under, I’m left prostrate to it — your ghost’s homecoming; I’m lost and strangled dumb with a throat full of water, a gasp full of a dog’s happiness.