Ghosts

Having survived the night of rhetoric and childhood
I'm left with the image of the three of us:
Mother, sister, daughter--an idea of progression--
An idea abandoned at varying distances.
The dream was the story of another way to live.
As the characters assumed uncontrolled postures
There you were among them, knowing what you wanted.

What if the night is a book you must dream
Someone else's dream over and over, each word
A syringe with the job of waking up
Some decreased part. Whose face is at the window?
An old white sheet with cut-out eyes
Held against a face you know, you remember
Someone smiling at you like that, a long time ago.