Breeding Fancy I dreampt I used to know many years ago a beautiful
pink-haired boy who needed a name. I thought ‘Puck’ and
‘Mustardseed’ but those were already taken. His
hair was oink but for some reason I called him
Verdi. In retrospect it could not have been the right
name for him. It was perhaps the right name for
the dream, which I remember in mud-on-steel grays
and leathery blacks with bright deep splotches of
alcoholic green, glimmering in unsuspected places.
Sometimes in my dreams I am almost caught up
with him again. Sometimes I hear someone call my
name. More fool I, to fall in love with a specter,
I never dream the same people twice. And then I
remember as immediate as bloodcramps the web of
playa dust on his ears in the sunlight, or catching
the loop of his earrings between my teeth. I
remember kissing the taste of purple everclear in his
mouth and screwdriver under his tongue and his
hands grabbing at my denimed crotch as we hugged in
front of God and everyone. None of it, of course, ever
happened. Friday night, jealous, resentful, dizzy from lack of
food and sleep and wanting a cigarette I wandered
away from the tents to fall asleep by a bonfire
burning in the middle of the playa. And I dreampt
of the most enchanted children. I dreampt
the dream I always have, of the world removed
from everything and flooding under constant dust and
rain. There, as always, was the mud. And as
always in my dreams of after the world ends
there were three boys with whom I felt an immediate
companionship, kinship, connection, and why not. I’d
been dreaming them for years. There was, as always, the
violence, the inability to speak and all its frustration,
or even when speaking to communicate. I was slapping
and striking the prettiest boy as hard as I could,
enraged by his looks, but as in all my dreams there
was no force to my blows, or I could not feel
them at least, though the marks appeared by
magic on his face. And there were muddle conversations
of great significance and no sense. And of
course there was sex, but, as in all my dreams,
I can only remember a few stray scanty
details. I dreampt the most beautiful boy I’d ever
struck or kissed pushed me down and fucked me,
whispering in my ear, “I know you, too. I’m you.
I’m you.” I dreampt of things that are never
going to happen. I dreampt of two dis-houred
days with a boy I fell in love with because I
would never see him again. The sex is always less
important than you’d think. In dreams the sex is
always secondary. In the desert I saw a new race of
creatures evolve, with crystal skulls, the insides tattooed
with incredible scenes to hide their brains from
prying eyes. Boots and raincoats and cigarettes. A
sleeping bag of heavy canvas and a tent too cold to
sleep in. Strange drugs. People who wandered in and
out, intersecting on their own dream missions. Sometimes
I hear someone call my name, and grow confused; am I awake or
asleep.  ¶ 6:48 PM