In my dream the dead console
the living about others
who may have died. Rumors
turn a 60s ranch brick house
into a warren of hidden

phobias—a different one
for each room. Fear of

wool, not cotton wool, brings her
to the farthest corner

of the cellar where a sneeze
is just a sneeze. And it is you,

my dear friend, who are really gone.
That other friend left
my life but lives on
in another warren on another island
with his superconductors and scattering waves.