Ace Boggess
Gratitude Note #45
Forgive me when I praise my wealth
of dreams remembered years after:
playing cat’s cradle with red yarn
while Sartre yelled at me in English
from up front in the lecture hall;
getting stuck in traffic on my way to the airport
to meet two women who offered a ticket
to fly with them to Paris, unable to make the trip
because the trip before the trip had trapped me;
a billionaire presidential candidate
ensnared me accidentally
in his time-travel device—I never figured out
what it was he wanted to see.
Praise freedom dreams I had in prison:
once at Calamity Café, my former home-
away-from-home, where turkey roasted
in the window between bar & kitchen;
then my escape & hiding under mounds of leaves
while officers in riot gear marched past.
My favorite was riding a bike on the highway
far from the pen, sunlight on my face,
before I remembered I didn’t do that in real life.
Praise also the dream of Muslim men
who sang their prayers in voices
of my cellmates, though less angry
despite our confinement—how serene I felt
as if their beliefs were mine.