I woke feeling I was in Van Morrison’s

song, Take Me Back.  I woke from dreams

of Mom doing our laundry with the wife,

Ruth, of our landlord in their basement 

on Mondays and hanging the clothes 

outside with wooden clothespins 

and watching the clothes blow in the wind

drying sometimes fast, sometimes slow.

And everyone was alive, felt, seemed 

real and I knew, then, I was dreaming

wondering what such a dream might

mean and I lingered in bed on the border

of waking and dreaming, torn between

the desire for each.  Dad asking, “A little

more coffee?” and now I am up, making

my coffee wondering where that voice

came from and thinking from the grave

which is six hours from here and how

even the voice of a ghost cannot carry

that far and think I must have slipped 

in time, that no dream can hold such

reality and I look outside to see the clothes

on the clothesline and see nothing.

Sigh, sip my coffee, see the signs that

I have slipped out of that time into 

what now is mine and whisper, “Take

me back.  Take me way back. . .”