what i saw then, peering into a scene framed within black branches, was a man with thumb and forefinger ringed around a red flower into whose yellow center he whispered a phrase.

suddenly i was aware of my life draining away in drips and drops. i felt gravity tugging at my eyelids. i was tired, i was tired, i was so tired. i seemed to fall asleep for an instance. and in the next instance i awoke in the body of my guide. i studied the head in my arms. “you will be a receptacle for this moment,” i said to it (to me, i suppose), “and i will bury you somewhere safe. and whatever pestilence ravages this landscape, you will remain unspoiled, under watchful moon, under warmth of earth, under understanding flowers.” with my thumb i tapped the place above the closed eyes. “bear in mind what you have seen.” i buried that vessel as i have buried others like it in other dreams. i have done this because there is always the possibility of someday. it may hurt to dig up the past, but someday an act of self-exhumation may become a necessity. someday if i should ever lose my mind i will have to take to these dark places with my spade and unearth the most sacred and secret parts of me. someday if i should ever lose my mind i will wake my sleeping heads and beg them to share with me, to sing to me. “someday if i should ever lose my mind,” i say as soil sifts through my bloodstained fingers, “someday.”