Dreamscape with Cogs and Crickets

There were lakes everywhere.
That’s what he tells me, my son,

molecule-stuffed and churning.
He has dreams—big ones, he says—

that scare him awake at night.
My daughter sleeps as if heaven

has its heavy hand on her back,
her eyelids flitting like crickets.

I live somewhere between the two—
between wild dreamscapes and milk-lulled

corners. Some days, I walk as if I were
made only of cogs. I nest bags inside other 

bags, lift one child, lower the other.
I fiddle with strawberries, bread crust, twist

lids tight, tighter, pull socks up and up.
There are holes everywhere

in my day, deep and darkening,
and a great big hand pushing me forward.

When they’re older, I’ll tell them
I kept time by buds or no buds, 

that I was sometimes lovelier alone. 
I see it now: all of us on the beach,

eating finger sandwiches, the sun rising 
like a basket of apricots. I’ve made a break

for it before. I’ve called it quits, but their hands
are full of fruit, their bodies like foals breaking

through the grass, and still I choose
to be the field that hums their names.