Zebras have stripes, leopards have parties. Bobcats eat ham sandwiches and crème brûlée. A bird will sit on your finger and tell you a story. A dog will sleep at your feet all night and not overthink it. The dog is chasing squirrels in the backyard of a dream. I was a beautiful day, I was yellow next to pink. I was a brush fire, a telephone. I was, I am. The mayor gave me a sash and a gift certificate for a complimentary dinner. He was very proud. It was a cakewalk. I took the long road to thicken the gravy. I pushed the words around. I pushed them hard. I did it blind, with the pictures in my head, and the technicians in the cloud factory filled the sky: cumulous, cirrus, cumulonimbus. They made some shapes so we could guess. We looked at them. I did. Meaning comes from somewhere. You could feel the figs swelling in the fig trees all afternoon. Imagination—image is the coal that fuels its little engines. Shovel coal. Call it love, call it a day’s work. Keep the furnace burning in the factory. The puff puff puff of possibility. You don’t need to know someone to be their lover, you don’t need to know anything. To get over Ben, I thought about Steve. To get over Steve, I thought about Paul. I went swimming in a blue rectangle. It wasn’t actually swimming but I called it swimming. Around the pool: A thousand grasshoppers. Strawberry cake: If only I had the room. The planes land and sometimes there is luggage, so here’s a little lamb for you. Maybe it’s a cow. And a tree in the background and a bat in the tree like a blot or a stain or a gathering storm. I know, I’m doing it wrong—meow, meow, meow. Big words and pig fat, très estúpido—but then, what do you know, the invisible table reappears. Go ahead and finish the thought. Say the dream was real and the wall imaginary. Fill the sky with clouds. A thought came up to the window and surprised me. And that was that. Nothing but fingerprints on glass. Don’t blame me. I didn’t invent the world, I’m just looking at it.