Five Strangers

Five strangers walked into my dream,
arm in arm, all different versions
of my deceased mother

They looked at me one by one,
with that look—her look,
that had been gone for so long

The first whispered to the second,
then the second to the third,
as the fourth and fifth just shook their heads

I tried to look away, but their presence
followed, and my eyes were frozen
in the judgment they proclaimed

My sleep now haunted by what I once knew,
a maternal affliction that my memory had cured
—returning again to infect my dreams

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)