The Gold Thread

If a dream requires a dreamer,  
doesn't this mean you're responsible 
for those absences which you believe 

burnished with reproach? The dead
don't enter your dreams anymore as often 
as they did those first few years 

after they passed. But as long as you
continue in the world, aren't they there 
with you? You walk through nearly empty

streets, and twigs crackle. A sharp
wind is blowing; storms bear down
on the islands. When you let go 

of the thread you were holding, 
it didn't spool away by itself until 
your fingers opened, one by one.