San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

DAVID BORTIN

Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On

I wonder if that other, secret self
Who wakes within when e’er I fall asleep
Has been up to some deviltry of late.

He had the crosscut shredder on last night,
Slicing with its sharp-edged dreams
My too-few hours to slender strips of sleep,
The strips into confetti to confound the memory.

I woke a dozen times at least
With each remembering the minute of the last
But nothing of what happened in between.

Can these unremembered dreams be such a torment
To that other self
That I awaken over and again
To find escape?

Or were they part and parcel of a plot
To swap personas?
When my alarm clock stopped the rhythmic beat
Which one of us, I wonder, found a seat?

Which self have I assumed? Whose dream is this?