In my dream the poker game is happening in a wood paneled room in the east 60’s, a setting both luxurious and boring. One of my fellow students who is deaf and mute hands me a written response to my essay and I’m ashamed that all I know how to sign is a fumbling “thank you” in response.

In my dream I glide out of the dark apartment onto the wide balsony, trailing my fingers through the night’s piled up snow. In my hand a cluster of black flecks resolve into tiny metal leaves, tinkling as I crush them together. A vote is happening.

In my dream a sweaty man picks a gold ingot out of the debris on the church’s floor and pockets it. “Nothing bad can possibly come of that” I say, and that phrase becomes the refrain of the song that runs under our group’s interactions from then on.

In my dream people have moved into the apartment, but I still have stuff stashed around in a couple of places. I need to move it out and I cram a few boxes in my pockets. The puppy is rolling on the grass.

In my dream we’ve been talking about whether she actually wants to publish a poetry book or just write and publish poems and the mood lightens. I grab a tiny espresso pot off of the stove on the street and pour myself a cup while we start to dance.

In my dream they are tearing down the 8th  Street Playhouse and even though I only saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show there once, I decide to get a picture of myself center stage now that the ruins are open to the air. Squirming past the box office and through the tilted the seats takes forever.

In my dream an imperious hotel reviewer with a revolver strapped to their back huffs around the hotel room I’m vacating, terrorizing the staff by brandishing stray hairs they have found.

In my dream the fight is against an invasive black tendrilled fungus and a cyborg. I pack my things after a final day of work and joke about an English therapist with her daughter while we walk in the dark.