My dream life has changed

in this season of pandemic; the verbs
most active in each scene include
escalate and isolate. In each dream,
we love our bodies more fiercely than
we acknowledge in real life: there are bodies
to spring from cages encircled with wires,
bodies on which we must pour basins
of cool water to prevent them from
going up in flames. We lose
our bodies over and over, or watch
from the sidelines as they take on
one impossible form after another:
a man with blue fingers, a fish
with accordion lungs; a tree
in whose nets of complicated leaves
pale lanterns float, each with the face
of children or dead lovers. Do you
remember what sound we should make
to exit the dream? If we walked without
needing to stop and account for our
whereabouts, we’d make a pilgrimage: look
for a hut in the hills or a town by the sea
where saints clap their hands and cry
out with pleasure when someone finally brings
them what they were always waiting for.