In my dream, I am at the crosswalks that cut through my home. (A place I stood before I knew I would live there one day, but I can tell- in this dream, that is a memory. Living here at all is a memory.)
The sun is beach-city bright, playful with its ocean accent. Roll and loll. Wave and tide. It splashes under my sunglasses. I blink.
I blink and then there he is.
A xolo walking towards me.
The street signs echo the morning light in a game of telephone. No city correctly translates the sun.
Beside me, the cross walk sign says the sun says batterbeamblaze. It mimics so loudly that my shadow is twice its morning size. Across the street, the sign says the sun says ooohphoooahhh. It breathes a halo around the xolo- no, a collar made of heavenlight.
This is a holy thing,
and before I even understand it, I am on my knees, tears streaming, arms outreached.
The dog runs to me and places his head on my shoulder. I sob into his long neck, but he does not shift or whimper. He rests steadily until I am all out of water, until I think I might be only a pile of bone-ancestored earth.
He smells like marigolds.
So do I, now.
He licks me across the face and I blink.
I blink, and he's gone.
And then I am, too.
