Dreamcatcher

Photo by Nandhu Kumar on Unsplash

her eyes dart
rapidly
back and forth, heavy-lidded
searching

for me
though i dream
elsewhere

she hunts me in dreamland
so many dreams out there
in one neighborhood alone
thousands of dreamers

breathing incoherent
then lucid
slipping through
the veil of worlds
through sleep paralysis

she moves fast through them

faster still and searching
in the forest of all dreams

she knows how i swim
she stalks the ripples
as they dissolve in the river

she listens to me
talking underwater
to myself in the river Jordan
submerged in baptism

and i see her through the water
blurred, sun-silhouetted
waiting for me
and when i surface
water-slicked and blinking
i am born anew
like a trout
caught in the Dreamcatcher
that hangs over her bed.

~ M.R. McNeely