façade

Last night I dreamed: 
I've left my hotel early, before my companion wakes, 
and I'm wandering the city. The buildings, the people,  
the streets are close-set, nicely jumbled, not arranged.  
I hear of a curved façade not far away and find it, amazed  
by its colossal surface, its bone-white contours,  
surprised to see the CVS loitering within. Suddenly  
I notice no one around me is masked 
though an airborne contagion looms, silent. I'm not masked;  
I put on my mask and breathe easier. The morning  

breathes, fresh and clean, 
so much grander than the small jitters: 
a cashier ignores me to wait on someone else; 
an unmasked woman sits too close; 
I've left the sanitizer in my other clothes;  
I rummage through my knapsack, unable to find something.  
Indifferently, I'm aware that I'm lost, watching 
the street names shuffle undecidedly 
between 50s and 70s as I walk on.

My phone's map claims I've been in Central Park  
all along, though this seems unlikely. I turn back 
for the hotel but soon I stop with others 
to watch a minor commotion in a grassy shaded spot, 
a workman approaching. Eventually 
I open my eyes, mind meandering,  
the bright morning all but gone, 
that other world concealed, sleeping.

© MMWms 2020

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