Dropped Spool in the Dark

Never, in a dream, agree
To split up and meet someone
Again. If they go, they’re gone.

That’s just the way dreams narrate,
Like a basket of laundry
Spilled on wet floor, like a spool

Of thread slipped from the fingers
Down the stairs and out the door.
Orderly cyclicity

Never reoccurs in dreams,
Where the strangeness of events
Is nothing to the strangeness

Of sequence. But why is this?
And why do children narrate
So similarly? And then,

And then, and then. Dreams go on,
Directionless, or always
Arriving, which is the same,

Unlike living, which goes on
With plenty of directions,
Plenty of repetition,

More like waltzing than rambling,
And never gets anywhere.
People are born trailing clouds

Of aimlessness and return
To aimlessness at rest, but
Aimlessness is comfortless,

Without some kind of return,
Without rhythm in the waves.
It’s not your sleep, it’s your days

Soothe on return. In dreams, when
Someone tells you they’ll be back,
You’ll never see them again.