In a dream I am an old man and my mother appears to me.
I am happy and surprised to see her.
She is singing “You’re So Vain.”
*
Just before my own child falls asleep
we talk about Taylor Swift.
These minutes can actually be quite intimate.
And then she is unconscious.
Unconscious and in a way really gone,
at least until morning. That’s the goal.
“How old will Taylor Swift be when I am twenty?”
I do the math.
“Thirty-eight.”
“Whoa.
What about fifty?”
“Sixty-eight.”
“Whoa. And you, Daddy?
“How old will you be when I am fifty?”
Different math. “Goodnight, precious baby.”
*
My mother doesn’t stick around for long,
just one chorus.
And in my dream I live forever.