At age 4, then lasting for years,
a short nightmare came to live with me.(Sometimes it struck just as I nodded off.)
Me, in a dark oval space--
like a hollowed out eggplant.
I touched the pliant walls & then
a dark shape like a train engine
ran over me, erased me & I
startled myself awake to stay alive.
It visited less often down the years
& finally retired. Somewhere deep
in the mind's damp stone workshop,
a laborer toils to work through
something kept secret from me.
The translation of that bedeviling
dream lies in a vault down there.
I don't miss the nightmare. But if
it came back, I'd think, "Oh, it's you."
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