Ordinary Handsome

It was the same dream, every night the same.

They are images more than dreams, a slow-motion camera in the dark. Images of a woman in front of a barn, tossing scratch to the chickens. She wears a faded dress that stops just above her knees. It is the color of chalk, and is threadbare and very old. I can only see her from the back: the tilt of her hips, the slow current of arms, a porcelain curve of neck. Her hair is long, in a loose ponytail, and flows like dark river water onto one shoulder.

The light captures each grain of the scratch, effervescent dust drifting to the ground. Even in dreams, she is bound by gravity. And then the sun rises over the hill, yellow and huge, and she is cast in it, a form too pure to be flesh. Her dress becomes invisible. A body radiant.

She begins to turn and there is nothing.