Dream Over

Here's another poem from a few years ago. When I wrote it, I had been wanting to use "Dream Over" for something. A website, a song, an album, a book...anything. The phrase really just appeals to me; that's where the poem comes in. I didn't write the poem to fit the name, but I figured it fit. This is another that would probably make my top three. I need to clean it up a little; I think it might start off a little pretentious. But here it is anyway.

Dream Over

Candles sitting sentinel over quiet lives,
lighting just enough to let us know
the other is still there. A quick flicker
and you ask, “Why ponder life?
Why give it the satisfaction of keeping us down?”

“What I don’t know about you could fill worlds,” I say.
“But what I do,” I say, “could fill my heart.”

“Don’t talk to me in poems,” she tells me.
“In fact, don’t talk to me at all. Let’s just sit.
Let’s just sit and enjoy the moment.
Enjoy the darkness and the patterns
the candles show on the walls.
Let’s just enjoy each other—we never
do that anymore.”

I give in to her—I always do
and she knows I always will. Or does she realize
this simple power she has over me?
I do as she says and watch the candlelight
make faces and sentient beings out of
the patters in the wallpaper. Wallpaper
I should have taken down or painted over years ago,
but she likes it, claims it gives the room
an old-fashioned feel I should be able to appreciate.

She doesn’t think I enjoy her as much as I do—
I can tell. She doesn’t know that I could write poems
about her hair, her smile, her scent, her soft body
as it looks in the moonlight, covered in sweat,
her breathing heavy after I’ve just taken her,
the sheets like waves around her formal outline,
and her hair in a mild disarray. She doesn’t know
that I have.

I smell the candles—lavender and cinnamon and
one called “fresh laundry”—all scents that she’s picked out
and that meander together in a domestic feast.
A thick vine of smoke crawls into the air
and she grabs a pair of scissors to clip the cinnamon wick.
“Don’t,” I say. “I like to watch the smoke.”

“Quiet,” she says. “Keep quiet. Keep quiet.”