Lilium
It sounded like the number of the sky
i’m in bed.
there’s a sound at the window.
it’s the dove, again.
no, it’s a large hairy beast
and he’s raising the glass,
to come in.
hoar frost prevents me
from speaking.
his hideous features
contain an element of grace.
feline. doggerel. succinct.
i don’t know if he’s
my savior or my destroyer.
the long arm of spring.
patterns of speech wildly changed.
smoke and amaryllis.
i can smell him inside.
-steven corsano
*I asked Steven to send me a randomly numbered dream. He did not heed the latter part of the instruction. Instead, he figured a certain number of dreams based on the day he was born, 24 May, 1955 and concluded that lilium was approximately the 21,007th dream in his life. When he arrived at that number it ‘sounded like the number of the sky’ and so he stopped there. We shall say, from here forth that 21,007 is the number of the sky.