Five Strangers

Five strangers walked into my dream,

all male and all different versions

of my deceased mother

 

They looked at me one by one,

with that look—her look,

that had been gone for so long

 

The first whispered to the second,

then the second to the third,

as the fourth and fifth just shook their heads

 

I tried to look away, but their presence

followed, and my eyes were frozen

in the judgment they proclaimed

 

My sleep was now haunted by what I once knew,

a maternal affliction that my memory had cured,

—returning again to infect my dreams

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)