Last night, two years after your death, Mom,

Jesse Millner

I dreamed you lived in a tiny apartment in Chicago
beneath some factory that churned out silverware,
and the whole time I visited, we could hear
the clanging of knives and forks being born upstairs.
You had me check out a leak in your bedroom
and indeed there was a little trickle
dripping down, probably ruining the drywall—
so, I said you’d better get a handyman right over
before the mold set in. In this dream, mom, you’d
never fallen to dementia. You still walked with
a steady gait and when you spoke, every single
word made sense. When I awoke
the factory had vanished, so I made coffee
and whispered to myself the way we do
when dreams end too soon and the morning
burns outside the kitchen window, sets
this latest world on fire.