Dream-shopping while odd music plays
in the backroom of the dream grocery store.
My foot tapping — wind droning, hand drum beat
and a strum — is that bandurria or
fado guitar? I should know this.
Should be able to differentiate. It’s
my dream after all. I don’t like my
instruments mixed. Give me purity,
not this wholesome mess of intentions,
though I admit to sustained grooving

as I try to pick out something for lunch
that will do more than just sustain me.
I want to eat something transformative.
I want to consume dream-flesh and become
all that suggests. The music keeps playing
and the counter clerk glares at my dawdling
and prodding about what each food can do.
“Try it and see,” is the refrain. “But I can’t
eat it all,” I cry out to the dream space.

I am beginning to love the music now
precisely because I do not understand it.
It’s evidently too much to ask that the food
be as simple as the music is not. If I am to be
transformed it will be on an empty stomach,
possessed by rhythm, longing for more.

I wake up, humming.
Where is my guitar?
So much to do before breakfast.