Sleepover

Ida and Isidor Straus sleep side by side eternally in an Egyptian galley fronting their Woodlawn mausoleum. Symbolically they lie. Their boat is small; nor was her body recovered from the Titanic. And yet the image of the voyage holds. Why not embark? A river runs behind me on the other side of this dark window. A dream called Night Boat arranged us side by side in a black craft, sailing the river of forgetfulness until the stars went out. It was poetic license. I didn’t dream that boat. The boat was dream, and we were passengers balanced on the slippery cusp of daylight, unless you had already disembarked in some shadowy port, leaving me to sail along alone.