Dreams

I never remember dreams upon waking,
but I do remember—
always in an absent moment,
filling the gas tank or moisturizing
a peculiar dry patch on my arm.
Suddenly I’ll hear a voice like an echo:

a sullen student muttering for me
not to touch his shoulder, my baby-sitter
bribing me with polish not to bite my fingernails,
an ex-boyfriend asking for a towel,
the dead 5th grade classmate singing
Christmas carols outside my first home.

I never know what to do with a dream
once recovered—it never feels
like a message or warning,
just a drowned part of the past
risen to the surface. Usually I push it down
and go back to whatever it is I was doing.