Warm Against my Thigh and Not Dreaming

I am awake:

I hear my wife

get up and go

to the bathroom,

and then out again.

 

I feel the curled-up dog-

warm against my thigh-

through the covers,

yet I am dreaming.

 

There is a pull-down staircase

into someone’s attic,

not mine, I have

no light, no tools,

but I must go

up and look.

 

A truss is falling

(which cannot happen).

It misses me

and then I see

a garage door

in the attic,

it has windows in it,

I cannot see out.

 

Now I am down

and I see my mother has fallen.

I help her up

 

and the awake me

remembers she is already

dead nearly two years

and I feel the curled-up dog-

warm against my thigh-

through the covers

 

and remember

it is time to go

wake the boy,

the boy who loves

the dog,

and I am not dreaming.