Stuart talked to me in dreams so real
I believed in God for those three years.

In the first one, he knocked on the door
of my childhood home.

I came out as if I were ten again—when the world
is so fresh even the neighborhood is foreign.

We sat on the wooden porch great-grandfather
had built, our legs dangling into the front yard.

He said he was sorry for walking to California
without telling anyone. He couldn’t stay

long, but wanted to say good-bye.
And everything was perfect until I glanced away.

When I looked back, his leathered face
and porcelain eyes told me

he wasn’t in California.
In other dreams he confessed he killed himself

but was resurrected and fine except
for an olive-sized hole in his head,

and in others we took walks around the block,
talking about all the movies that came out after he died.

They all ended the same. Soon
I prayed for waking.