The marriage came first,
but soon after: lizard baby dreams,
haunting, disturbing.
The child, misshapen, slipped
from my hands
and fell to the floor,
where in seconds it shriveled
and died.

Six months into
the marriage so soon falling apart,
Jim (therapist
and interpreter of dreams)
helped me see
it was my dying self
I held in unending dreams
of death.

Not one then
to surrender control (illusion of),
seven years passed
before I released the dead thing
whose power
to keep killing me
remained intact. Divorce:
a dying.

But my boy,
just one then, he lived…
oh, how he lives,
how his life resurrected me.
And we held
this fragile life, looked together
in amazement at love that
never dies.