In the dream, I'm in a second hand-clothing store, wandering among endless racks of dress shirts and classy suits. Dust motes float in the dim light.
I notice a small room lit by a single overhead lamp. It contains but a single rack of elegant robes, each in vivid colors with fancy lapels, threads that James Bond might wear while seducing one of his many women. I reach for a plaid robe with bright red lapels. Suddenly, I’m awake, anxious, in my moonlit bedroom.
I know exactly what the dream portends. I glance at the hook on which my old robe hangs. Relief! Still there. If robe years are like dog years, it's older than me.
I can see the large patches where I've had a tailor salvage it after it grew some very large holes in the wrong places.
"Do you want exactly the same kind and color of cloth," I remember the tailor asking in an incredulous voice.
"No," I had said, "it's just a robe. Do your best."
Having had it patched doesn't relieve my present anxiety that it may one day disappear. When my wife looks at it, I see the rag basket in her eyes. When it falls to the floor, my dog sleeps on it.
I won’t soon be parted from this robe. My life isn't a Bond film. No one, besides my wife, cares whether a little flesh is hanging out here and there. And who else would see me as I stump around in it?
I pull the comforter over my head and drift back to sleep.
lucky moon —
even when waning no one
threatens to replace you
I notice a small room lit by a single overhead lamp. It contains but a single rack of elegant robes, each in vivid colors with fancy lapels, threads that James Bond might wear while seducing one of his many women. I reach for a plaid robe with bright red lapels. Suddenly, I’m awake, anxious, in my moonlit bedroom.
I know exactly what the dream portends. I glance at the hook on which my old robe hangs. Relief! Still there. If robe years are like dog years, it's older than me.
I can see the large patches where I've had a tailor salvage it after it grew some very large holes in the wrong places.
"Do you want exactly the same kind and color of cloth," I remember the tailor asking in an incredulous voice.
"No," I had said, "it's just a robe. Do your best."
Having had it patched doesn't relieve my present anxiety that it may one day disappear. When my wife looks at it, I see the rag basket in her eyes. When it falls to the floor, my dog sleeps on it.
I won’t soon be parted from this robe. My life isn't a Bond film. No one, besides my wife, cares whether a little flesh is hanging out here and there. And who else would see me as I stump around in it?
I pull the comforter over my head and drift back to sleep.
lucky moon —
even when waning no one
threatens to replace you
by Ray Rasmussen
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
first published in Contemporary Haibun Online, V1, N3, Dec. 2005
very moving. it is really hard to explain our strange attachment to some old close. It feels like they have their own kind of spirit.
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