Lucid Dreaming

Falling asleep, I always ask what house I’ll be in. Tonight,

I find myself in a childhood kitchen. Tonight,

I wish for a restaurant and order a dream of you:

“I’d like to see Eva’s lopsided grin tonight.”

We tumble through the woods for wild blackberries,

and dine on German lebkuchen tonight.

I want it to last; like stashing leftovers in the fridge

for later. Delay my alarm. I’ll scheme to sleep in tonight,

so I can be there for just a few more minutes.

It will end with a sad violin tonight.

When the sun steals a dream, it slowly dissolves

images receding -- Auf Wiedersehen, tonight.

I often dream of being in past houses, and of faraway friends. I recently read an article about lucid dreaming and imagined what dreams I'd create of the things I miss most from previous duty stations. This poem is written with loose grammar in an attempt to capture the strange, distorted feeling dreams often take on.