But in the dream, somehow, it was new. It wasjust us — just us down the curved tongueof California, and the faux wind                  of the Mustang you rented, it madeyour quarantine hair a wildness                  I didn't think to capture until afterit returned wherever it came from —                  but the thoughtlingered, even — hours later — in the motel bed                  I dreamt for us, down the throat of evening, onceVACANCY announced itself, martini green, across                  our faces, even throughdrawn curtains. The thought                  lingered until the sun sputteredback into the sky and we woke                  to NO across the sheets, to morningwith bathrobes left braided                  in a sleep-kicked pile, terry cloth stillslick with night, the condom perhaps                  floating, bloated, in the toilet, anotherslithering down the pipes. It was just us                  in that sand-white Mustang, and I spentthe whole day as I had all winter: thinking                  about every part of you I could remember —it was then in the dream I realized                  what I needed to tell you wasn't somethingI could tell you in a poem.                  It was something I had to show.