dream

we had lawns made of water instead of grass
in my dream where me & you were traveling 
far from where we belong. i swallowed a bee
in a thick forest of staircases & inside me
i felt the honeycomb's hexagons multiplying.
i was a sugar doll. you were a lawn 
which is to say you swallowed houses but no
you were you as you always are only
slightly slanted. we were at a fairgrounds 
they forgot to charge us or we snuck in.
the fair was on a hill or a forest.
it was october or june. you were
small & made of twigs or tall & oak-leaved.
we watched as all my money evaporated.
it must have been counterfeit. 
i had hid my wallet in plain sight
& was distressed to discover someone
had stolen my twenty-dollar-bills--
replaced them with jokes. before disappearing
one bill read be careful next time. 
the thing about dreams is i never get to
see things through. our car was a shack of wood
& i pushed it off into the lawn.
it was evil. you believed me. we were
very haunted in my dream. almost as haunted
as we are in real life. we stood out front the fair
waiting for a way to drive home.
bees climb out between my teeth. i spat them
into the palm of my hand. i pet them
with my pinky-finger. little soft pets.
you told me to call an uber & i insisted
we wait for someone we know.
under the earth was a gymnasium. a competition
was being held. we could ask any of those people
for a ride, yes & we could finally go home.
i don't know where home was 
in the dream because we never got there.
we paced & you were disraught & i was worried
you would leave me & jump into the lawn. 
my dreams are always asking to be poems.
i wish i could lay on my back 
& unspool my dreams to an interpreter each morning.
i wish he had thick glasses & told me 
with assurance what every symbol means.
then again, a symbol never means
only one thing. take for example,
the water. do i want to drown 
or be baptisized? is there a difference? 
i loved you even in a world of deep watery lawns 
& hills that arched higher & higher. 
your skin shifted.
you were several people. a quilted lover.
did you want me for my sugar then?
to taste the golden of a different world?
my mouth dripped with honey
& you drank. our car rattled like bones. 
none of this matters because it is gone now.
the world has collapsed behind me but
somewhere you are waitin for instruction
& i am sorry for waking.
i check my throat for bees in the still-blue dawn.
only one. it crouches like a thumb.