Sweet Dream

With the beat of black rolling thunder off the sound

you are in Faulkner's dream -a lost pilgrim
in cheap shoes appearing along the top of a road
the feverish notion of love to be had somewhere
down the way along the evergreen and dust

where mean drunks and cynical privilege  
don't run this world but scurry into the shadows,  
at the flick of a light

where landmines exploding with razor-edged butterflies
cannot find their way between cotton sheets drying
on the backyard line -or into the sleepy eyes of a clerk
taking his cigarette break on an empty loading dock

Watching the late morning tick away.