The Pole

Lawrence Raab (2000)

We were back in college, young again.
She was someone I yearned for
throughout the spring
of my senior year. In the dream
it was evening and she was having dinner
with her friends when I appeared
at the door and waved to her
until she came out onto the porch where I
was standing with a long wooden pole,
maybe five or six feet high. I said
I had brought it to her because
I'd heard she was going rock climbing.
Yes, she said, but you don't need
poles to go rock climbing. Which I knew.
From the beginning of the dream I'd been aware
that was the case. Which meant
nothing would happen between us,
although the strangeness of my gesture
didn't seem to trouble her. She smiled at me.
And in the dream I remembered where
the pole had come from. I could see it
leaning against the wall beside the blackboard
of my third or fourth grade classroom,
a long pole with a metal hook on top
used to lower the shades that covered
that room's many tall and empty windows.