This week we talked over beers,
and my mother told us a ghost story.
We each have  dreams that plague us
again and again, over years,
threatening to creep their way into our realities.
(these are our ghosts.)

My dream was always deep blue and black,
of my body surrounded by water, though I did not drown,
or even gasp.
I was ensnared in moving parts that I had no power over,
held underwater in this churning machine,
not quite a victim but certainly not a hero.
Sunshine was my eventual respite, as was the cushion of my bed,
but the morning always seemed like a fragile gift, then.

My mother dreamed of her teeth, over the years.
She dreamed that they were the traitors inside her,
decaying and betraying,
perhaps cackling as they fell to the floor or
just lying there like bones.

My mother’s delayed trip to the dentist promised her a bridge,
or an implant, but also some calm.  

NPR and This American Life pulled my dream,
my ghost,
from the shadows, too. The story of a diver
ensnared
at 900 feet below the sun,
who would never see it again.

I’ll never be at the bottom of Bushman’s cave,
but, the ghosts say,
you never know.