the kind of dreams

where you know you’re dreaming.

Where you can fast forward, rewind,

slow things down.

I didn’t know you could

manage or write dreams. Craft

the world you want.

My dreams were once

the smell of chocolate

or the startle of thunder

or oh, no, I missed class!

as a student or now a teacher.

This summer our child ran into an Italian field with friends

and a soccer ball. I sat with a new mom friend in the shade.

I trusted in him, our new friends, the dry grass below his feet,

sunscreen and bug spray

that he’d be safe

from gunshots here, far from America.

I wish the dreams that wake me up, paralyze me in the day,

were still about storms or a scheduling mishap.

Instead, I send him to school in America.

(He starts middle school today.)

I walk into a classroom to teach.

Last semester, my students who lived through COVID lockdowns

shared they had been through active shooter drills

and/or lockdowns

and/or shootings.

One had lost a friend to a bullet.

I am unprepared

to save them

our son

or myself

in a classroom,

the street

or anywhere else in America.

I cannot retool this nightmare for them

or him

or myself

alone.