(from the NaPoWriMo prompt: write a poem based on an image from a dream. We don’t always remember our dreams, but images or ideas from them often stick with us for a very long time.) [Instead of an image or an idea, I wrote about a sound.]
Her voice is a play I saw
in London in the 80’s
and can’t quite remember
anymore,
like the hush and whisper
of the rain through the closed
kitchen window
this morning
or the thing you’ve forgotten
but remember that you’ve
forgotten—the phone number
or the movie title
or the smell of her perfume
and the feel of her laugh
on the hot summer night air
during the cocktail hour
before the hospitals
and white swaddling blankets
and the silent tears
I watched glide
down her cheeks
after her arms stopped
working and all she could do
was lie in the bed we’d put up
in the living room.
I must be asleep to hear
her voice now
and in the morning
it is gone.