As a child my mother told me that dreams had projective powers: I remember details of dreams I had when I was six or seven as accurately as I recall my best friend’s telephone number.

One dream pulls me back to the nighttime fears the way a fierce undertow carries you out past the safe boundaries, past the point where you can still see the shore. I dreamed of death. I’ve since learned that most children do. Talk to a child for half an hour in calm conversation while taking a walk or making sand castles, and see whether death, heaven or hell does not come up.

In this dream I spoke to my guardian angel, pale, thin boy who looked to be not of much use.

“Do you know that some people don’t go anywhere,” said the angel, shifting transparent wings uneasily, “after they die?” “But I will,” I can hear myself say, “I will go to heaven and be with everybody from my class and from my…

Read More

Really, the lioness does all the work herself.

He’ll only mate

when he believes he’s indispensable.

Hunters brought home the heads of male lions,

not because they were trying to bag only the males

but because the females kept pushing the males out in front.

The female doesn’t strike with teeth and claws

but strangles slowly,

a gradual hug to break your bones

and stop your breath.

She hunts alone.

A cozy death hug so subtle in its stages you hardly notice it

until your life is already gone.

Stop struggling.

It only makes it tighter faster.

(Photo by Flickr/cc user Namibnat)