“Let’s talk about fantasies.”
An appropriate topic I suppose
For a drizzly Thursday afternoon.
“Do you have any?-
Not sexual, I mean, too boring –
Fantasies of a different future?”
Did you know
That some of the grand mansions of Newport
Have been divvied up into condos?
And you could live there?
You could own one-sixteenth of a marble estate
On Bellevue.
“Interesting.”
Although she always says that when in fact
It is probably not.
“Do you think about it much?
Have you left it just a vague idea?
Have you added the color and shadings?”
Once a week or every so often
I go to real estate pages online
And check the listings
I like the ones with tiny white kitchens
And claw-foot tubs
And a washer and dryer tucked away and
Using up the only closet
And windows in crazy spots because the room
Was never meant to be so small
But with a big old fancy staircase
Shared by the other folks who live alone
In a piece of the palace.
With a cube of a fridge and a two-burner stove
I would walk to the market each morning
To buy only what I felt like eating that very day
No need for a car
I’d bring the dog right down the aisles
Because the shopkeepers would like him
They’d give him a biscuit and say Good Boy
Summer would buzz with decked-out tourists
And there’d be art shows and concerts
And fancy changes to menus
And just when I think I can’t stand the crowds
for one more minute
It would be autumn
And everyone would go.
Quiet again,
I would put on my parka and stroll the beach
And the dog would bark at the seagulls.
“When does a daydream stop being itself
And start being a plan?”
I suppose it is when
You are finally ready
To give up what you already have.
With Resistance 