Last Dream

Out of a motionless infernal shudder and clang of steel on steel as wagons moved toward the eternal, a sudden silence: I was healed. The stormcloud of my sickness fled on a breath. A flickering of eyes, and I saw my mother by my bed and gazed at her without surprise. Free! Helpless, yes, to move the hands clasped on my chest—but I had no desire to move. The rustling sounds (like cypress trees, like streams that flow across vast prairies seeking seas that don’t exist) were thin, insistent: I followed after those vain sighs, ever the same, ever more distant.