Fevers and Dreams

Baz Luhrmann shot the scenes of my last dream. But that is all. Like he was experimenting. Maybe learning to use some new equipment. A long stream of white rooms and lots of  people working at various tasks.
Lots of people.
Me in my white t-shirt and blue jeans. My chunky flip flops falapping as I move from room to room with a baby on my hip. Not my own.
He refuses to lean into me for rest or comfort, only every now and then holds onto the neck of my shirt when I bend and he feels off-kilter.
He's very serious, this baby. Dark eyes and hair like me. But face not like me.
He's wearing a nondescript one-sie. He is super clean. He smells super good. He never cries.
At some point someone takes him from me. A favor. A break, they say, but I feel naked without him on my hip.
I see him watching me from across the room, in someone else's arms, like he is asking me when all this will be done. All the preparations, the cutting, the pasting, the hanging, the warming of food. Do we know how much time we are wasting he is asking with his stare.

I take him back. Take him outside. We sit in the grass. He looks more like a baby now. He leans back into my chest, looks up at the clouds and names the clouds in his head. That's what it looks like he is doing to me. I am sure he's a genius.

I don't ever wonder where his parents are.

At the end of the dream, there is all this footage, but no story line that anyone can make out.

But me and the baby have been here before. He's holding onto my finger and cocking his head with one eye closed.

There is a story here, he is telling me. A good one.

Of course it is. I say without saying. You're in it.