Beneath (Poem)

I had such strange and melancholy dreams last night.
I was keening at my parent's now-sold house, the floor tilted on the acute
eyes fixated on the old wallpaper that was ripped away when I was three

then, lurching, on board a plane that did not fly but floated, silent, silvered,
a grave phoenix under a heat-lamp sun
knowing all the while that this dragon's fire was out, and crashing inevitable

running from the unseen monster, of course.
no dream-dystopia complete without it

seeing, with horrified clarity, my daughter's face, calm, closed
translucent under the thin skin of bathwater
my heart exploding in my sleeping chest

all the while, a voice was saying this, beneath the changing scenes:
everything dies.
lover and beloved pass away, the new grows old.
visions fade and flicker out.
all is recalled from whence it came.
gentle or fierce, the night arrives for every living day:

soon enough.

soon enough.

- Kathy, 18/4/16