Dream fever – coda

Yet all of the dreaming

We'd nearly missed
each other, lover,
a lost decade later
until you'd laughed
in alcoved shadows
in an unfamiliar cafe
in an unfamiliar city
and I snapped round
shocked
by the fresh echo
of an unforgotten sound.

Together
we'd been elemental
for that small time
of intertwined life
all of the dreaming
mattering more
than anything
maybe before or since
yet wrongness coiled
like unsensed smoke
through all we did
from the beginning
subtlety unnoticed
as souls sickened
sickness quickened
and we lost our selves.

In the wordless
illness
of needful parting
coils remained
twined through
and you called and wept
mute evers and nevers
and I dreamed
brokenly of you
forever every night
you floating at a far parallel
in a thick sea of liquid black
among huge dark red bubbles
of something smoky,
opposite to oxygen,
choking my ragged lungs
with each sunken breath
as each of us floundered
further apart
unable to touch
tried to buoy upward
disoriented in dimness
unsure whether we
would ever break
the surface again.

I never once dreamt
of reaching pure air
before waking
yet all of the dreaming
and still, slow, surely
I forgot your face.

But for that chance laugh
I would have missed you
never would have turned
and you then would not
have glanced over at
the abrupt movement
to see me see you
slowly rerecognize
each other,
and finally decide.

You left soon after
uncertain
unceremonious
wrapping your self
in the warming cloth
of your latest lover
willing your self
to look any direction but.
But you couldn't not
your eyes turned
to mine locked
never speaking
remembering stare
lasting
for the lingering eon it took
for you to pass and be gone
for the split second we took
to rise and break through
slough off last old smoke
refind our selves and
break free finally of
all of the dreaming.