Insomniac Dream Journal
by James D’Agostino
But here come two young lovers,
how close will they get, how far
stay apart from me, they’re here
to take pictures, look, one’s got
a camera & he’s smiling & upright
& still & she arcs around, attached
to each other at the eye-piece,
planet / star pair, their shadow braid
orbits are years, his image crispens,
her memory spools, takes all this
late March light into the teeth
of its reel & turns, now she sits
right there on one of the rocks
that line the lot & he’s on one knee
with the camera, leaning back & leans
back, finally sits on the asphalt
on the downstroke of a sit-up
& smiles inside a squint, & half
a century from here maybe finally
she calls to someone down a hallway
hopefully him, this was during
the pandemic or whatever we’ll
call it then, First Seeding, Spring
Wave One, & he’ll go no that was
way before or at the shore or why
would I wear that jacket she’ll ask
to the beach, & the waves say
we just went that way one day,
you were worried anxious, bored
& wanted to see what we’d look
like & called me to the drawer
you found this picture in, where
my god we are so young &
might not know shit yet
hadn’t forgotten a thing.
***
James D’Agostino lives in Iowa City with his partner, the poet and book artist, Karen Carcia.