I want to pull the tiny cork from my inner ear and let my mind out to wander.

Catch a light current like a tissue. Sneak back while I sleep and leave me the gift of a new thought. I'll name it as I wake and love it as my own, which might mean I punch it a few times before saying good morning. Why can't the day begin this way?

Lily arrived out of nowhere too. She didn't shimmer gently, like a film of dreams in my eyes one morning, but crashed into my legs then flopped down by my running shoes. Me, and the two dogs with me.

Folding instantly there in the street as my backbone disappeared, I cuddled down close to this crazy dog that asked for my attention. Did she care that Hershey snarled and Bandit gave his best I Want To Eat You bark? Guess not. Anyway, I am remembering the first time I saw Lily, thanks to an expiration date of December 26 that I saw on the bottom of something, stamped on the carton like a mini connect the dots.

December 26 was the day I drove around the corner to pick up this poor, starving, shit covered dog. This can will expire exactly one year after I adopted Lily on a rainy day after Christmas while Jerry did the dishes and I wondered what the hell I was doing. Actually staring at my muddy boots I thought of one foot, then the other, one foot again, then the other. Just keep moving.

Apparently my mind has wandered like a boomerang. Nothing original here. It returned to me with something old old old. It's OK to think of things again and remember. Sometimes the memory changes and something sitting on the far end of a couch or at the bottom of the stairs becomes clear, finally.

Last night I dreamed someone else's dream. A man raced through fields and crossed closer to a violent river with a scenic overlook. Down the side were distant footpaths narrow like angel hair. This man raced after his dog. I tried to see it but everywhere I turned I saw something different. Living room classroom kitchen a cow field swimming pool pool table stalks of corn rows of mounded dirt. A dog! He raced over the edge and dropped down to a footpath where distance and speed shrunk him into a lady bug. The man arrived and stared down over the edge. He was having a frantic dream of an elusive dog racing through crowds as he shouted and not one stupid bystander heard him.