Dreamlife

  In the dream, I am in class
with Steven A., the effeminate analytic professor who taught my Emerson
seminar the year before last. Or, rather, he and I are in a small room
adjacent to the one where the class is being held. I read him a poem
(Rilke, I think) I have in a folder. I guess he approves of it, because
he tells me to go out and read it to the class. He goes ahead of me. I
intend to go in and read the poem, but when I look for the poem in the
folder, I can no longer find it. It seems to be full of landscapes
instead. Minutes seem to pass while I rifle through the folder. Then I
hear my voice reciting the poem from next door: S.A. has decided to
play a recording.
  Then I’m walking through a
swimming pool that stretches indefinitely ahead. My feet are following
an underwater path. However, I reach the end of the path and my head is
nearly submerged. I look around and am relieved to see an egress from
the pool not too far away. (In waking life, I can swim adequately but
in the dream it doesn’t occur to me that I can do anything but walk.) I
emerge from the pool and make my way to some apartments nearby. I don’t
reside there, although it seems to me I know someone who does. I enter
an apartment that is clearly inhabited although no one is there at the
moment and begin to remove my soaked clothing. I am surprised that the
body–specifically, the dark, muscular legs–I see in the mirror are
not recognizable as my own.