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These Dreams
By Scott Mulrane

These dreams rise on a note shaped
in a manner heard just once
or once a day for years,
on mangled English lugged
from a distant homeland,
on faces that echo in cavernous rooms,
on hands of the kindest of strangers.

One may speak of these dreams
as aberrations of the heart’s voice
and fail to acknowledge,
may dismiss them as drunken rants
from that one glass too many
or that meal eaten late
or among those
who do not dream these things
or do not dream.

But the heart speaks without accent,
like the flute’s round words
or a lingering phrase from the violin.

We dream these things because
we love, and we have loved,
and the heart, though it talks tough,
bruises, and heals, and walks in the world again.