The next bad thing was John Jr., the neighbor boy, riding his motorcycle into my sleep, the sound approaching and then falling away, approaching and receding, unzipping, a long line of steps falling downward, the road a curved staircase, a long downhill. John Jr. is not a boy but a man who lives in a barn. Nobody knocked on his headboard to reveal a staircase leading to trees of silver and gold. And John Jr. is no swan: if animal, he'd be weasel: pointy nose, fair skin, skinny. In the dull light of the stupid moon, which doesn't know better than shine and fade, shine and fade, he fumbled with the locked gates to the field across the street.

And now my dreams don't want me, they won't even send letters, just thin silvery links of cobwebs, not enough for a bracelet or anklet, not enough to line my nest, my cup of mud that swings from the catalpa tree.