Sweetwater, NY

As far as I can discover, it doesn’t exist —
there is no Sweetwater, NY.

So the dream that ended there,
the dream in which I drove all the way to Sweetwater while asleep
has to be symbolic, as does the extra steering wheel
I spent an afternoon installing while parked in a driveway
on a farm where no one was home while the sun fell lower and lower
off to my left as I pulled unfamiliar things from the glove box:
the disc camera, the grey gloves covered in soot, the baby toys.

And the family that came home and were remarkably unperturbed
to find the shaggy man flat on his back in their driveway
must represent something, perhaps some forgotten obligation
to settlement and peace, as they welcomed me in and offered me cornbread
as if I was an old friend. When I finally recognized the mother
as someone I’d known years ago and we hugged so comfortably,
when I finally kissed them all farewell with their address
on a postcard tucked into my pocket (and I would know that handwriting
if I saw it now, awake now as I am) so I could find them again
if I came that way, it must have meant something, and I drove home
certain of all these things, steering from the passenger seat with the setting sun
behind me, cruising home through a flat landscape
that looked like gold spread all around me.

I choose to believe in the meaning of this,
just as I choose to believe
that the beginning of the dream
was of no importance, was just an introduction,
was just some experience translated
from the room around me as I slept: the waking up in terror,
still driving but not on the road anymore,
straight out across flat stubbled fields,
forcing myself to turn back toward that road that would lead me
to the farm in Sweetwater where the rest of the vision would unfold —

I can still taste
the cornbread, sweet and crumbly with fresh butter;
I have nearly forgotten
the sound of the shattered cornstalks
under my wheels
as I drove.