By Will Walker

For the first forty days,
an infant spends her sleeping hours
recalling her past lives.
She watches the panorama of the past
through her light-drenched portal,
all phases from the caves and skins
through cuneiform and hieroglyph.

She is a shepherd, farmer, courtier,
mother of twins, father of three sons,
mistress of the king’s minister,
itinerant juggler and musician,
half-wit and soldier. She sees herself wearing
burlap or silk, linen or lace,
eating porridge, lentils, beef and bread.

She watches the clouds from hilltops and valleys,
hovels and palaces, feels rain fall
from an angry sky, hears the wind shriek
and wail, watches the master die, and the mistress
and their sickly son. In forty days

the child wakes up remembering it all,
then starts the long journey to forget.
This life will be new. This life will be
enough to see, to work.
Enough to hold, and to lose.

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Will Walker lives in the Haight with his wife and two dogs. He has published a chapbook, Carrying Water, available from Puddinghouse Press, and a full-length collection, Wednesday After Lunch, which is the winner of the 2008 Blue Light Book Award and is available on Amazon.

SLEEPWALKER

I feel him staring at me before I actually see him.

A 12 year old, five-foot-eleven boy standing in the shadows of the hallway and staring unblinkingly at me at 3 AM is a bit unnerving. I pause, fingers poised on the keys of my Macintosh. “Kevin, son, what is it?” I ask, as I ask every night.

In his sleep, he speaks with the stutter he overcame two years ago when I made him join the basketball team. “I c-can’t find Christian.”

I stand up, my back aching. Who is Christian? I wonder yet again as Kevin begins to tremble, whimpering. I place my hand firmly on his shoulder. “Let’s go back to bed.” I guide him down the hall to his room and Kevin glances into the corners of the hallway fearfully. His room feels cold, but at last I get him to lie down.

The next morning, over wheat puffs and coffee, I ask his perspective. He shrugs, but anxiety flickers in his eyes.

“Something on your mind?” I ask.

His expression tightens. “Oh— ah. Yeah, actually. I don’t remember sleepwalking, but I’ve had this dream every night.” He dabbles his spoon in the wheat puffs. “That I’m playing basketball, and everyone’s laughing at me.”

“That’s natural fear of rejec—” I begin, but he’s not finished.

“So then I throw the basketball at them, and it explodes into red paint.” He waves his spoon, scattering droplets of milk. “It kind of looks like blood.”

I wait for him to go on. “And what about ‘Christian?’”

“I told you, I don’t know about that.”

Kevin leaves for school and forgets his gym bag.

 *  *

That night, my eyes ache and the computer screen blurs. It’s 4:06am and I need to go to bed, but as I sit forward I feel the telltale chill.

I slowly turn to look at him. “Kevin, son, what is it?” 

He stares at me, hands behind his back, and when he speaks, he doesn’t stutter. “I found Christian.”

That’s when I see the shadow hovering just behind him, motionless. Waiting. “Kevin?” I ask. My voice quavers.

Kevin hurls a basketball at me. I try to dodge, but I can’t tell if I catch it, or if it hits my head, or if the thing behind him rushes at me and knocks me over and chokes me until I black out and Kevin stands over me and just stares, stares with those dark eyes and doesn’t say a word.

I wake up with my face pressed to the keyboard, a whole page of “yyyyyy” on my computer screen, and red paint splattered across my chest.

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Lisa Shafter coaches for the on-line program Write@Home, furtively traveling and free-lancing in her spare time. Her articles have appeared in national magazines, and several St. Louis drama troupes have performed her short plays.

TWO DREAMS