Caught,
Inescapably dreaming in some other half-deserted mind,
There were only flowers for graves.
Flowers for weddings and flowers
For the sick were almost gone now.
There were no flowers. Plants had fallen to the
Same whims and lusts that had themselves fallen.
As parasitic vines that kill their hosts and then must
Die themselves, these whims and lusts had
Killed their hosts, but I dare not say those desires had died.

There was a window, bright and clear,
Bearing the hoarfrost of another morn.
Another evening’s leftovers, in a leftover world
Where little is left behind.

(This little girl’s doll had no new dresses,
No hair, no doll’s house.)

The air, rank and cold: I’d smelled that air before,
In some other dream I chose to forget.
Sometimes the chosen path is not the same path followed.
Then I remembered, all too vividly,
What was missing.

Missing: not to be seen through frosted windows,
Not to be seen in streets or meadows.
The churches lay dormant, schools empty.

Like some far historic monument to a dream
Yet to come, buildings, too tall, stood in silent and somber repose;
Bridges traversed gaps that were not to be crossed,
Vehicles that should never have moved on earth
Whistled in the stark wind that blew threw them.

In barren streets there could be none found,
None in the sun that gives it,
None in the air that makes it.

(This little girl’s doll had none either)

There weren’t any flowers, either.

The doll stood in mute mockery of
What once was: little girls,
Little babies,
What could have been people.