Chimera

Chimera

Accustomed to dreaming—that nocturnal reach into other
worlds, imaginary states, the shadowed wilderness of her mind—

when those dreams multiplied in number, in strange,
she welcomed this burgeoning night life. Once, she visited

the Pietà, after it had been smashed by a madman. Standing in
the deep shade of the chapel, she tried to puzzle the broken pieces

back together by touch. In another dream, she walked through cornfields in
the snow, picked an ear, peeled back the bright green husk. Inside were

not kernels but endless skeins of cornsilk that stuck to her hands, her face.
Still walking, she tripped, fell into a body of water. The cake she was holding

disintegrated, crumbling into what became the South China Sea. She swam
out into the blue-green, eluding snakes, tried to reach the floating bits of cake

to cram them into her mouth. She didn't mind the seaweed that came with the crumbs,
the briny brack mingling with the sweet, making her hungry for more. Swallowing

the sea, the cake crumbs, the seaweed, she awoke to find saltwater
soaking the sheets, awoke to losing, again, all the stuff of her dreams.