Like the diver who comes up for air
with visions of the deep, who then finds
the light forever changed, its quality
stained with a longing for darkness
perverse in its insistence:
after shapeshifting dreams
have eroded my thin sense of life,
I rise to the day without having moved
to a soft pelting rain at the window,
the first undeniable signs of approaching dawn.
The cat is there, intent at the sill
on the call of distant doves, a scent
on the wind, on all things and nothing at all.
I catch my breath as the dream slips down,
then plunge back in to catch it.
Today will have to wait, but never does.