Dreaming My Name Back

For my father

I seem to be in a low-overhead room

Like a roughed-out Navy mess deck

Populated by a throng in dungarees

Shooting the shit under the ocean churn.

In my dream state I seem to be floating

Until someone calls my name, “James,”

A summons that brings me to attention.

.

I join the throng and explain that “James”

Appears on official documents, perhaps

On the alleyway where I was born

Or the coal cellar where I hid from bombs

But it was never in the air, never

On my father’s lips, never in the household

Because there could not be two of us

So, the name later became something of a shadow,

On my degrees, my honors and what I published.

.

On waking I wonder about the below-deck

Navy scene and why my name was on the dream

Circuit. I recall my father’s earlier voyage

From Southampton to New York, then earning

Our passage, paving the way for my sea story,

New vistas, angles on the world, lines of latitude

And Pacific star-gazing that enhanced

The endless, soulful gift from the father

Biography on the way to psychology,

In the words of the poet Auden

“New styles of architecture, a change of heart.”