The first frost has eaten the box hedges
that delimit the agora. Of some thirty people

surveyed as they eddy from theatre
to laboratory, to classroom, to cafeteria, one

dream alone merits written scrutiny
while the rest are worse than meaningless.

Here, as told by the dreamer, a woman
whose canvas lace-ups were without laces,

is the dream: I am bent over a cauldron.
My brew spits like hot oil; I never wince. Steam

coats my face, a membranous white gauze
as on the inside of eggshell. New ingredient

for every five full turns of my spoon—a dash
of meteor dust, the entire sun, moon rocks,

nebulae, which the dark broth emulsifies.
Before long, I’ve incorporated the known universe.

I look around. There’s a table; oak, or
iron. My seated lover bangs his bowl against it.

Ladleful after ladleful leaves the cauldron
for his throat, his head tilted back, Adam’s Apple

the knuckles of a clenched fist, threatening me.
I force-feed him until everything is finished.

Promised anonymity, the respondent called
the dream, from which she woke hateful, recurrent