“100th Greatest Poet of All Time Berrigan” read the blue underlined headline in the Google reader on my iGoogle home page. I clicked the link and it took me to the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet blog. “Is Ted Berrigan exactly the 100th greatest poet of all time?” the blogger wondered. The post went on to say that someone, I forget the name but it was hyperlinked, argued just that. I stopped reading and clicked on the link which took me to an article on The New York Times Website. “Ted Berrigan is exactly the 100th greatest poet of all time,” the piece began. I read a couple of more sentences, I forget what they were, but they lead into a consideration of a volume of his called Face-off. The writer explained that this was “a series of two-line quips that played off each other culminating in. . . .” My mind added the ellipsis in the dream as I began to consider my own short suite, was it any good, of interlocking two-word insult poems which I had made a couple of years ago and all but forgotten. I tried to get back to reading the article but I started to drift toward wakefulness. I heard a small cry and I thought it was my daughter, then I thought it was the cat, then I realized it was nothing, which meant I was awake.

A poet who goes, who grows, who glows, by the numb in the number, by Who knows?, 25, published a translation, a pulp, a carnation, in The New Yorker of all places, in the heart of my dream. He was young, he was mean, he was the drop of a hat and more genius than me. He was (in parentheses) Alan something G- something, one of those sanities, those post-grad manatees or careerist wannabes, a poet-chef or con-man camping in the Andes, dazzling and brilliant and dapper when appropriate, like accepting an award or daydreaming Oprah. One of those who glows, who grows, and goes by three names, who references Han Shan, the etymology of shambles, the shimmy, its catharsis, and the history of the shaman, all by inserting the phrase catch as catch can into the first line of his jigsaw meditation on Tristan Tzara's short poem “Route.” At first I think it's nothing that hasn't been done before, or I am jealous of his connections that make me feel like a jalopy puttering in the middle of a five-lane highway, then I realize it's how he would feel too if he were me, and I see him standing in a tree over the forsythia at the edge of the woods behind the Swing-and-Slide Playset, a little boy with my hair, middle finger in the air.

I'm reading over a prose poem I just finished. It's really wow. I have the perfect title: Seinoira. I print out the poem. The bold, one-word title looks especially beautiful over the block of justified text. But I think it should be "Sayonara." I Google it to make sure. I cross out the title and write in two words. My handwriting is illegible as usual. I correct the spelling in the body of the poem as well. I wake up and I'm awake for real so I head downstairs, power up my Mac, sit down in my squeaky chair. I have a three-line poem called "Sayonara." I hold it in my hands. The first and third lines are longer than the second. It's like an embrace. It might be something. It might be wow. I feel competent as a child screaming out for Mommy wakes me up for real.

Stumble through the hall of morning's first moments. Familiar rumble outside from the construction across the street. Into and out of the bathroom. Into and out of the dream. Into and out of the thoughts that aren't there. There might have been a dream, sitting in a cell block, looking at a clock through iron bars. Some chubby guard with a dumb grin, fuzzy eyebrows, and big blue clothes. Big ol' Hollywood keychain hooked to his big black belt. Pacing the hall in his big black boots. Down into the morning, Vaughn at her desk in the kitchen, cranking out the multi-colored Play-Doh. Dash tottering between Vaughn and his mom as he learns how to walk. Magnets across the floor—an orange g, a green o—and tupperware and toy silverware, and toy-sized tins that either are or aren't toys I have no idea. Sometimes my guts want to give up and seep back into the earth. The little noises too much. The excesses, the effusions, the never enoughs. Vague and dizzy feelings cradling objects. "The sky / is a black / sudden cloud, / a sun. / Speak / to me, say / what things / were forgotten." (Creeley, from "The Shame")

Soon we are tossing and turning ourselves to sleep on the lumpy air mattress. I wake up frequently with dreams I think I'll recall in the morning but of course I won't. I remember only the one bit of a dream where I was with my family in some kind of lodge with a deck out back and a sliding glass door, and pacing out there was Jordan Davis, someone I've never met and know nothing about except for visiting his blog a few times and I think he co-edited The Hat, and anyway he's out there, looking like D.H. Lawrence, wanting to kill me, but only in a nonchalant "maybe I will, maybe I wont" kind of way.

Running through a field of tall grasses. Running from something, but not from something too terrifying. More like running from the cops from a keg party in the woods when we were kids. Though I don't notice it at the time the horizon is startling for its lack of trees or houses or buildings of any kind. It's an incredibly long field that touches the clear blue sky at the horizon. The quickly repeating shushing sound of every step—shhh, shhh, shhh through the tall grass. Soon the sound grows unnaturally loud, so loud it makes me dizzy and knocks me to the ground. Faceful of grass. I turn around under the immense sky, just enough time to recognize the sound of galloping before a red-brown horse races past, hooves no more than a foot away from pummeling my skull. I gather myself, stand, and turn to look at the horse racing away. My little girl crouched on its back, gripping the reigns, leaning forward, head beside the horse's, as if to whisper, "Faster."