He dreamed a hydrangea big enough

to block out the face of a star,

sleep-sweated the featureless sea.

Mornings, he painted its naked form

a thousand times in tidy landscapes

with businesslike rain dropping evenly from the sky.

Last night in dreams he abandoned

his hat and pipe, neither a hat or pipe,

in favor of containing an island in a bottle

carried in a doe’s wet brown eye,

as she fled through a miniature wood,

sky cut out in the shape of her form,

pasted in that moment,

sameness of clouds drifting

through her through him.