Will de Kypia

     

To remember her dreams my mother kept a journal.

Using indelible ink she described the enchanted world

she dwelt in while asleep. Her small but elegant townhouse.

Private dinner parties at fashionable restaurants, menus

handwritten in French. And cultured, caring friends.

Friends she'd meet when someday finally came.

To guard her treasures my mother found an old

wicker jewelry box. Within, curios were arranged like

butterflies pinned to a board. A sandlewood fan, all scent lost

to time. Her favorite necklace, its coral beads a gentler

shade of red than those blood drops on her pillow.

The tiny ivory elephant she'd ride away someday.

To share her hopes my mother bore one child, a son.

He was blue-eyed, silent, as steady as sweet grass in the

wind, and she adored him so. On the bad nights they'd cling

to each other and she'd explain again what powers each

treasure possessed, how hopes make dreams be true.

In his soft blue eyes she saw her someday.

  ~

My mother is alone now, asleep in her grave. The box

and the book are with her but that boy is far away.

He never had treasures or dreams or hopes of his own

and he couldn't wait forever for someone else's someday.

   ➺