For my mother

Lullaby

When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. (John 21:9)

I think I was dreaming of the atmosphere of dreams,
or is it only certain dreams: low clouds almost
hide the water; you slip outside, untie the boat, take
it out beyond the harbor; a world that knows you
pulls you into just the knowing it’s composed of;
Then heading home, you wake up dreaming
of the atmosphere in which you still half-float

or think of the kind of lullaby where a child
sets sail for a distant kingdom; the singer sings
as if the boat will return, as if sleeper and singer
meet in the dream; the singer watches from
the dock; the boat, the farthest dot on the sea;
I think I was sailing to that kind of meeting

or take a lit room above a dark city where
the composer slow-dances with the soprano
past boats and bridges, stars and rivers; only
love, says the song, is never blind; any
two have a link unlike any other; with eyes
closed, you would find one another, past
sleep and death and unbelief; he goes

to the kitchen; she opens a book; I guess
we were moving through levels of ourselves,
ways of thinking, degrees of being; from love
to love, purposeless surface to surfaceless purpose
into the dream behind the dream: where
the pulse unties; the boat pulls free; she steers

it out from the inlet to open water, shifts the net to
the other side, sees a figure onshore, jumps into
the water, swims toward land like a young
apostle; I think I was dreaming of finding the way
across the night to the room through the door
where the one we sailed away from
is making breakfast on the shore.