An other me?

Were the shooting stars

I saw last night

just falling in my dreams?

The thought that I was sure

that I’d remember popping up

like a cork in a pond,

floating away instead.

Is this all a dream that

lives in someone else’s head,

Some guy who never left

Modesto or Nebraska.

And if I walked past him on the street,

would we exchange a glance,

a nod on the border of cognition

although our paths would never meet?

Is he on his way to rendezvous

with a lover as sweet as mine?

Or is that a dream of his

I’ve stolen like he has mine.

Is that jasmine I detect, -here?

or in some other land.

Does the echo of that song

I can’t quite remember,

the half that’s missing,

whisper in someone else’s ear

The hills are turning now

from green to blonde,

as the year always insists.

The church bells chime noon,

the children in the schoolyard

laugh and shriek at play

and perhaps the ones I never had

live somewhere else, far away.