In Dreams
by Francis Ittenbach
Waking calmly in the Bible black some hours before I felt
The day’s weight begin to press, oft-sidelined vulture, on my chest.
Visions of Larkin and his postman going house to house
Or, possibly more comforting, the bakers at their tasks
Of kneading, heating, salting their bounty, as mine
Sleeps slowly in the fridge, bubbling at a glacial pace.
A dream of Tokyo, language missing from each encounter
While still I went to mass in some unknown tongue
And, to the left (where it shouldn’t have been) some simulacrum
Of Mount Fuji crossed over by Olympus’s face, snow-capped
In its odd geometry.