“sweet dreams” she offers him
because she knows sleep evades him
anxious in the solitude of nighttime
and the weight of eyes upon them
instead he dreams of wasps nests
Michael Keaton and his second childhood home
Michael Keaton finds a wasp nest behind a painting
and releases the swarm into the yard as a flock of birds
while he runs out the back door with a nest on a plate
wasps stirred as he stumbles through the back porch
•
and then the next night:
he dreams about his daughter
and their now deceased chocolate lab
this time they are at his in-laws’ house
both of them also passed for many years
his daughter tells them she has a degenerative disease
and it will affect her pregnancy with her second child
and this dream swarms around him like angry wasps
•
she invited him in
she did not pull but pushed
laid bare there before him
in the softest white and black
her gift to his waking life
sweeter than any dream imaginable
—P.L. Thomas
Selected Poetry 