What Is Chosen in Dreams

by A.M. Juster

Weeks later he emerged from honeysuckle
and baby-blue hydrangeas like a soldier
fresh from the front, unwilling to relive
the butchery no witness glorifies;
he loomed where porchlight was diluting gloom.

I could not shrug this off as some bad dream.
I saw his eyes were blank and full-moon bright
before I noticed tendrils, long and lush,
that dangled from his ears and mangled mouth.
I rifled through my memory to find
some cure or consolation.
All that time
we stared in airless silence, then I knew
that I could will this night to end, and did,
and sent him to unjust oblivion.