There's a forest growing on the carport
roof, miniature pines and oaks mingling
with trails of ivy, all bred in furrows
of earth-choked aluminum.
Every day something new sprouts up
under the yellow-green shade of the canopy,
fifty feet, a hundred feet above, dropping branches
and seeds.
Something seems to be gathering itself there,
a mythic little world just out of reach,
like the dream I had last night.
A hand, my hand, held a white feather,
and the dark descended and opened up,
and light spilled in and there were two feathers,
and two hands, and the dream repeated and repeated
until each hand was full of white feathers,
and my arms rose, and I was flying.
I woke slowly, expecting a bed of nettles,
but I was back on earth, the springs in my mattress
digging into my ribs.
I walked outside and saw my husband perched
on a ladder next to the carport, bulldozing
the tiny forest with a shovel.
"You wouldn't believe all the shit up here,"
he said, descending. And I climbed the ladder
and gasped, because there was no forest.
It was just a bunch of weeds growing in displaced dirt.
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