In A Dream Of White Lead Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

in a dream of white lead
I heard the word
'Mayakovsky'!

you said that dream
should come to you, not me,
but can dreams be chosen?


later I dreamed that Joseph Brodsky
returned to his first
New York apartment
one week after his death,


stunned by the vacancy.

and in next year's ochre-lighted dream,
to a furnished one, complete
with friends and reviewers:

smiling, in a light apart
at their consternation,
serene

as once he stood before
Soviet tribunals so
clearly, tenderly, ironically

'decided by God'

mary angela douglas 30 september 2000/31 may 2005

copyright 2006