-faded-

I happened upon an ancient Egyptian

Pharaoh in a dream.

as Pharaohs go he wasn’t a famous one,

although “Famous One”

seemed like a moniker he’d embrace with gusto.

and he wasn’t what one would call authoritative,

but wasn't overly meek, either. a rather bland,

low-level sort-of runofthemill Pharaoh, one might say.

we talked about interior life and about the lies of perspective.

he said he preferred to address things that were substantial at the base.

he emphasized the benefits of stability in heavy-footedness. 

Pharaoh showed me a stone tablet which contained

the slight relief imagery of a cat.

he said: “this cat will travel with me

when I sail across the sea of the dead”.

but here, the dream faded in the manner

of the sliding doors of an elevator, or the curtains

of a Broadway stage.

later, after a splash of faucet water to my face,
I searched through the fragments left behind from the dream
in hopes of finding a better ending.

half-an-hour and two cups later, I could barely recall
the face of Pharaoh, or details in the setting of the scene,

or the process leading to Pharaoh's decision in choosing
this particular cat for the eternal take-along...

INCOMPLETE