In a Recent Dream I Read Simic to You at Your Death Bed

Back at the old, sturdy house
the purples would be quick to
gather in small bundles over
each and every cloudy puff.

This was my house, not yours,
but often I would believe
both were one in the same,
each shutter and tile a match.

But things were not always
as easy as one, two, three;
sometimes it would take months
for me to even notice angles--

angles! the simplest conjectures!
I discovered them the first time
after eating twenty seeds from
"Hawaii" that had been microwaved.

You wouldn't know that softening
them is apparently the best
thing you can do for your stomach.
But still not good enough to

prevent that yellowing nausea,
or those wild visions you
avoided while my dog licked
my face and the chair was great.

The old house, where trees were
the best way to track time,
where the poets we read were barely
cared for, barely dreamed about.