I dreamed my father cracked
a wishbone
over my head and blessed me.
The sound like lit match.
Anointed with the heart of the carcass.
I wondered why he was being so good.
Of course in dreams
bones shatter like teeth: the two prongs
unsinewed, gnostic, meaning
it could happen, it can’t not happen.
So the choice was easy.
All good dreams begin with my father
blessed me, even if the blessing muddles like gravy
in the morning over crossword, bread, glass misted.
Stir it
in my coffee with a finger,
one half of the philter, his the other, somewhere out there,
black milk of daybreak and you drink and you drink—
The flesh singed gently, as in all good dreams.
Rebecca Beauchamp is an undergraduate at the University of Virginia. She will be studying at the Ashbery Home School in New York this summer.