he keeps dreaming life
around him. The lovers next door still
sigh through tangles of stars
and the stun of dawn.

The milkman awakens from his past
delivers milk like morning news in bottles 
cream rising to the top reminds him of headlines
of one war ending and another about to begin.

In the schoolyard, down the street, children 
chase each other into their futures
shriek stories that escape meaning
and break against the sky.

After last night’s rain, autumn leaves 
fall into red and yellow abandonments
collaging on the ground, those random footprints
leading there, and there and there.

Evening and the dream tires of itself
rolls over, decides what color to follow.
The man calls to the dream as if it were a lost dog
leans against grief’s shoulder with an empty red leash.