Every dream I have had in the past month
has involved intruders in my home.
I’ve found creative ways each time to
dispatch them all, neatly or otherwise.
But why is this? Except for one last
night where I woke up in a stranger’s
house, and I was the intruder-
making up stories of how I fainted
to explain my presence there to
a bored housewife who didn’t care.

Dream I.
Involving gypsy-sheik intrigues.
A moment finds me in my neighborhood,
which is now surburban/yugoslav
italian-style white stucco houses
the streets are patrolled by samurais
in yellow plastic rain-slickers and
straw hats, wielding silver katanas.
They have infiltrated my house,
and are holding my family hostage.
I am the über-grandmother, rotund
with olive oil in my long black hair-
singing and weeping and tending
to the frightened skinny little ones.
I invoke the sympathy of the guards
with my keening, humming song-
mournful and comforting all at once.
I have two pistols in my apron pockets
which I use to take them out one by one-
making improvised silencers out of
wadded-up baby clothes.
We hide the bodies in cupboards
and suitcases and under beds.
All the while I continue singing.
Soon they are all dead, and the
big boss arrives- a quiet and
thoughtful african muslim,
a very religious and very
dangerous man- he strokes his
chin and decides not to punish
our family as he respects me for
holding ground, even if I did
kill all his best men.

Dream II.
I live in a little house on the banks
of a deep green river strewn with willows.
The house has curved glass windows and
is built to resemble an antique curio cabinet.
An intruder peers in, trying to get to me-
muttering hateful words as he fumbles with
the locks. He sits all day in the cab of his
red truck and watches me through the slats
of the venetian blinds. Like an animal.
He tries to break in but runs away when he
hears that I am calling the police, only to be
replaced by a second and third intruder-
this time harmless but annoying bums
who smell powerfully of filth and sweat.
They gain entrance and beg for money
which I give them so that they will depart.
Then I am flying very high over countryside,
fields and trees and farmhouses far below.
We are precariously balanced on a broomstick.
A very daring girl risks plummeting to her death
while dancing on tip-toes on the end of the broom.
Horses in my dream- the black and the bay I ride
along the river, the seashore- strong legs
and manes rippling between my fingers.
His arms are torn and wounded,
heavily stitched and embroided in
complex geometric designs in lavender
thread by his new lover, I scream in his
face until I am hoarse.

Explain this to me.