Distant, growling, thunder woke me
from the sleep of nothingness.
A man was staring out the bay window
into the glimmering lightning.
His back was faintly red
in the light of the digital alarm,
3:30 am. I am not dreaming.
He stands and turns to look at me.
I am naked on my bed. He has
a mask over his face –
the hyperbolic smile from old theater.

He tells me he is here
to replace the owl who ate the lice.
You mean mice.
No, lice,
the lice of your poison dreams.
I don’t dream.
No, you don’t, not anymore, that is my job,
my day job actually.
Really I’m a musician.

The man is well dressed:
black linen suit, white shirt, red tie.
I go to him and touch his hand.
It is sand. I unbutton his shirt.
He is made of the wet warm sand
of my childhood.
I ask him what he has done with the owl.
I am also the owl, he tells me,
but he does not look like the owl.

I think I know you,
I think you are here on purpose.
Yes, he answers.
I am on purpose. The owl was by accident.
He let you dream,
which led to the great sadness.

I stick my finger deep into his sand chest.
I feel the warmth of my childhood
flow up my arm, days at the beach.
He takes away the mask,
showing the back of his head.
He walks away.

I lie down on the bed
and contemplate the great sadness.
The day I lost my identity,
the honor I worked for.
I always thought it was greed
or bad judgment.
The psychiatrist said
wrong place, wrong time.
Could it really have been caused by dreaming?
I fell back into the deep sleep
of nothingness.

–Bobby Steve Baker,
Numbered Bones
Accents Publishing