The Nature of a Racer

In my dream, I mistake
the hare for my tortoise
because
the hare itself forgot that the finish line

isn’t the end of a race. It stumbles, suddenly

fearing the currents it tries to outrun.

Because
my tortoise mistakes itself, too, but
for a turtle instead.
It dreams to be carried away by the water
along a different river.

Because
the hare falls down a hare hole and sees
converging rivers— swirls of brine, spectrums of sand
green, yellow, blue, red flowing into
the bottom of the ocean’s black, falling into
the other side of the hourglass. A caterpillar the shade of sickness—
or life— crawls down a stalk of sky and asks,
“Who
are
you?”
Because the hare stares into a looking glass, and finds
a turtle
swimming on the other side.

Because
my tortoise spots the hare on
the river banks, shaken and
hypnotized by something
small– something green–
something trying to crawl up
a flower, and
metamorphose into itself.

Because
in my dream, the hare awakes
from despair to find itself carried
upon my tortoise’s back, ascending inch by
inch up a hill and inching back down.
my hare hears the tortoise’s
muffled lullabye through thick walls of a dream, singing,
urging, Let me carry you when you falter
let me guide you let me teach you
how to win
let me show you
why we race.

Because
my tortoise tells the hare:
Here is where you step.
This is how you step.
There is the sunbathing lizard that

you will alarm.
That is the dandelion that
You will crush beneath your feet—
See its seeds scatter?
Make a wish—
There is the soil where you will plant
your next footstep. Here is
a step.
Here is another step—
Here is the finish line.
Here is the journey that isn’t our own
because whose is it really, if we both won?

Because
I also awake into a
different kind of race, a race
whose identity I, too,
sometimes forget.
Because I am baffled by who is who:
Am I the hare, the tortoise, or
both at once? Or am I
the outstretched hand, the
converging rivers, the journey,
the racetrack I’ve run through
to get here?