On Reading in the Morning Paper That Dreams May Be Only Nonsense

by Billy Collins, from Questions About Angels

We might have guessed as much, given the nightly
absurdities, the extravagant circus of the dark.
You hit the pillow and moments later your mother
appears as a llama, shouting at you in another language.

Or you find yourself drowning in a sea of breasts,
or drowning in as sea of basketballs –
those who have attended night school will be quick
to explain the difference.

Or the nonsense is just a scrambling of the day before,
everyone walking around the office stark naked,
the elevator doors opening on to deep space,
the clamshells from lunch floating by in slow motion.

Too bad Freud isn’t here to hear this news,
maybe some pharaohs too, druids and wide-eyed diviners,
all gathered around my kitchen table
in their exotic clothes, their pale mouths moving
silently, as in a dream,

and me pouring coffee for everyone, proffering smokes,
pacing around in my bathrobe reading the paper out loud.

But the scene would soon swirl away
and I would find myself alone in some fix,
screaming within the confines of an hourglass,
being driven to the opera by a blind chauffeur

or waking up to the chilling evidence on the bedroom floor:
a small pile of sand, a white bow tie.