Diary of an American

I dreamed about a dead poets son who

self annihilated

I took an elevator that went to nowhere and stopped between floors.

He was darkly handsome

His smile comfortably intimate, as if this weren’t death we were living in as if his

life had never happened.

I became
lost in his studio, scattered with the detritus of years.

The fish called to you. You bade me stay while you strode forth in confidence, leaving me to wonder at your absence.

2023 Diane O’Leary