The last time my dreams were high and bright like this
Was when I was taking quinine pills in Africa, little white
Discs like stars that you swallowed. They were meant
To prevent malaria, hysteria and fever dreams, to keep
The brain from disease and unease of sleeping in the
Grass of the savannah. Yet we’d sleep, and not feel sleep
Because the dreams held us deep within, those little
Pills dotting our dreamscapes and feeding us visions
That felt like drug-induced hallucinations, illustrations
Of convoluted, convulsing, meta-conversational worlds.

And here
We are, in a world where disease and pandemic feel
Endemic and endless everywhere, everywhere, tainting
Every brain with little white pills every night, vivid skies
And scapes and lifelike portraits of what the world is like
Behind the masks as if to say to God above, “Is that
Really so much to ask?” Now I ask only for grass instead of
Restaurants and hotels and all that is still semi-lost,
In limbo, coming with a cost beyond dollars: dollars
And dreams.

Seemingly endless dreams and days, time beyond our gazes,
Muddled and puddled at our feet where we don’t
Have to face the horizon and whatever is beyond it.