Mara Bergman
Sleepwalker
I wake with dreams still beating
and like a sleepwalker off balance
I carry them through the house, down the road,
on a bus leaving town. Everything points to centre,
to this hard globe pressing on the heartside.
I cup it and hold my breath.
Maybe there is no such thing as instinct -
maternal, nesting - just the lack of concentration
for anything else.
The other night I dreamed I grew so big
my skin stretched translucent
and the baby’s head shone through like a beacon -
milky, unfocused, not yet mine
to hold. Far in the dawnlight of childhood
everything familiar becomes familiar still -
that neighbour’s garage, that tree -
driving down the street that will never be quite the same
as day cracks open the sky and I wake.
Page(s) 89
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