I had a dream
I went Christmas shopping for you.
Dropped our kid off
on the fifth floor, daycare center of Highest Prestige.
I looked at coats--
leather, windproof, turtle fur--
then came across the jacket
you put on when it started raining on our first date.
In the dream
I turned it over in my hands
and remembered what it felt like
to want to fuck you so badly before I fucked you.

I wake up and it’s all wrong.
The dream
and you sleeping in my lime-and-spinach sheets past noon
and me writing a poem about it.
You lost your coat when you moved to the city
and your car got towed
and didn't have the money to get all the things you loved out of it.
You'd leave me if I wanted a child.

It's Christmas time
and I don't have enough change in my pocket
to toss it all away
into the mall fountains of my dreams.
I just want you to have something that can keep your feet dry
when you walk through two feet of snow
to get to my apartment.

I believed in Santa until I was 10.
Mostly it was just that fear of not believing
and getting nothing for it.
How stupid I was
to keep on buying the lie
just because I was afraid
of getting nothing in return for truths.

12/20/2008

Posted on 12/20/2008
Copyright © 2010 Stephanie Lane Sutton