At the periphery of my sleep, breaking waves is an emotion I have become a stranger to.

It looks like simple joy and on touch moves that way too, in simple steps down the street.

It opens my door, enters without knocking and stands at my bed waiting for me to awake.

Whose shape is it, whose seamless form? Is it like red wine swirling over my tongue, pungent, pigmented?

Or is it like a dogwood tree in bloom, with flowers like little stars, like snowflakes, which line the avenues in my wintry dreams?

I don't know, I don't know and so I call out, with my eyes closed, "Who goes there?" “Who goes there?”

But on speech it vanishes into the night, opening a door I can't enter tonight: like that red woman who has left me now with these thoughts of wine and flowers, and discontinuous sleep.

Written on 2002:12:12 23:30 Revised on 2006:07:25 22.00 Flippant aside: I must have scared this "red" woman for we never went out again. And as a poem, this barely stands.