The Man in My Dream

A year ago, I was writing a poem for Alastair, on his birthday.

This is how March 22 became a good day for poems and why I must add one today.

A man appeared in a dream
unknown, longed for.
'Hello' he said. 'Hello.'

He was tall and taut, his
blinding presence made a small
primrose bloom
and tickle my ankle.

I flickered like candles
in a stormy room.

He wrapped his arm
around my waist.
'Shhh, steady'.
And this olive limb grew
straight from his heart and
longer with every breath
a strong, undeniable
vine round and round
an arched
Entrance.

The man in my dream
bent down to kiss me
and (before I felt them
on my lips),
his lips
turned to water.

They bathed my eyes
my mouth, my long fever,
with quick-smarting waves
of salt and summer
a soaring stream
a pulse of colour...

then, damn it, dawn
and the man in my dream?
gone.

I want him back,
and more please,
if he would,
step out of the dream
and into song

and then from song
into my hazel eye...
and then perhaps he could
just slip
from eye into heart
and then?

But wait, no!
Listen:
he is right
outside
my door.

Excuse me poem-readers,
I must go.