The Psychoanalysis of Dreams

by Diana Hartog

Every night, millions of jellyfish pulse to the surface of the world's
oceans to feed, a great migration released from the depths,
a vast exhalation of images sheer and
transparent, they could mean anything--

ghostly parachutes rising from the mud dangling their empty harnesses,
mushroom spores drifting up in all innocence from the Cloud,
white blood cells on their way to a fresh wound,

--but nearer the surface and four in the morning,
lying awake, we see them for what they are: recurrent dreams
on their way to tomorrow night,

albeit with a few stragglers and hangers-on; the stray apparition, tardy, confused,

the dead son-a helicopter gunner in Vietnam-who appears at the foot of the bed
in the wrong room
the wrong house,
the neighbor crying out in her sleep, sitting up, No dear,
next door!-Your mother will be so happy!