Volume 8 | Spring 2018

by Alan Yount

the same dreams
sometimes happen over and over...

    in high school
    kissing a girl for the first time:
    on the porch, suddenly lights go on.

at college, after studying all night:

    falling asleep
    I miss the final.

late for an interview:
finally get there
 
    & find out it’s the wrong room.

my young daughter, who I still smell 
her fragrance, from hugging me:

    slips away, and
    disappears down a crowded street...

some nights, floating
up and out of bed
smothered in covers...

    and I can’t cry out...

down here with craig schmitz
(my high school dance band drummer)
who was killed, in vietnam.

    we are forever clawing up a muddy hill
    somewhere north of da nang...

it’s three a.m.
you think you’re awake?
or asleep?
a voice tells you:

    there’s nothing
    you can ever go back to again
    and change in your life, 
    even in your dreams.

why does the night
          last so long...