Have you been having any weird dreams, a friend asked.

Why? I wanted to know.

He tells me, you said you’re really tired. get some sleep, you need those dreams.

I agree. I lay down at night like a lump with knees and elbows and slowly warm up under the comforter.

In the morning I am still in the same spot; my heavy arms and legs never shifted.

I grew a kink beneath my shoulder blades and I think this sort of inert restless dreamless sleep like drying cement is the reason.

Up with Lily and outside and over broken branches and boulders sitting there for centuries until one day they held up my foot. Through the hemlocks and I trip and plant a gloved hand hard against a bubble of snow. Crossing a deer path and uphill to a clearing I look for a stick so Lily can chase it, turning her face upward and waiting to watch it fly. Pressing Lily’s pretty face between my palms and leaning my head against the flat slope above her snout I imagine a hollowed egg shell. I hold in my hands something as fleeting as a bird’s skull. I feel the structure of her head and think of straws holding up a tissue.

The vet left a message to ask how she was doing.

She is doing, I tell the answering machine.

Last night Lily and I ran. With her leash in my hand the ground felt as if its substance was slipping away and unable to hold my feet. I look down at a blinding white surface sloping downward and Lily and I are falling.

At 4:27 in the morning when the birds are still quiet I wake from the dream.