Dreams of Day and Night

Abstract

Dreams of Day and Night Robert Cording (bio) Without End Because she gave him life, she must buryher dead child inside herself, a laborwithout end, but one she undertakes.Because she gave him life, she must do soagain, one cell at a time if necessary:limb buds, pits where his blue eyes will be,caverns and ridges to reveal a brainand heart, his neck and face; and after,those first signs of wrists and ankles,his five webbed fingers and toes. Her childwill not toss or turn or kick for morespace as he once did. He will not bereborn. She knows this. But, becauseshe gave him life, her child must becarried with her—there is no other way—for the full term of her remaining life. Rain, Snow, Rain Without plot,the day out- side my windowslips from snow to rain, slipsfrom little drips of water to silence—the rain's presence [End Page 564] within the snow,and again the snow. Inside I can't sortthe sordid facts of a neighbor'sunthinkable murder in this rural townof five thousand. Rain, snow, rain,and, within, without relief,anger and grief looking outon an inky net of winter branches—my exposed nerves will not becalmed by the easy passage of waterfrom hour to hour, so much welling upI cannot stop, so much that outrunsthe mind's stubborn need to make sensewhere no sense is. [End Page 565] The Parting (for a twenty-fifth anniversary) Hard to imagine what sleep might bringif you should die before me,since all these years we've been togetherI've had a dream of a day when we part (there is never a reason), and the partingturns out to be forever. When I call you,again and again, the voice that answersthe phone is never yours. When I wait for you in those places we thought ofas ours, nothing is ever the same:the tea shop's shade is always downand the café umbrellas closed up on the sunniest days. And, when I findthe small town we live in, it could bea diorama of the way people once lived.Even the rooms of our house are not the ones in which we ate or reador made love. If this dream is a rehearsalfor just how little we can keep of our livesof being together, then each time I find my way back from sleep to your warm fleshmust become the reunion I so wish for,but I cannot believe will occurafter the two of us are gone. [End Page 566] Robert Cording Robert Cording's poetry has been published in the SR since 1986. Copyright © 2008 University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, 37383