It was very kind of my ex-husband,
dead these dozen years,
to show up in my dream last night.
At first I was scared:
when we parted there was blame
to spare. We were young
together, we were idiots, we literally
drove our car into a ditch,
and I no longer recall
how we got out. Some helpful stranger,
probably, equipped with chains. There was need
of rescue, from our own folly most of all.
But here’s what I miss: no one else
remembers the summer we were twenty-six,
invincible, directionless,
driving the back roads
of Kansas or Utah, stopping for Cokes
and to stretch our legs at some dusty
gas station where the locals eyed us
with suspicion: You’re not from
around here, are you? No, obviously,
we didn’t fit in — except, for that small span of time,
with each other. In my dream last night
we didn’t touch. He was beaming
at me, though, in the old way,
as if I’d been forgiven all my failures,
as if there were nothing to forgive.