Dream of the Four Directions

In a dream, an avocado tree in the backyard:
winds in typhoon season hailing fruit too high
to pick— In a dream, fluted shapes beneath

its branches: plumeria and ginger lilies.
Fragrant spikes turn brown at summer’s height,
wings folding back into the tree. Can you name

the shopkeepers all along the road into town,
opening their shutters in the morning?
The bakers have been at their trade

since well before the break of dawn,
pinching the yeasty hearts of bread
before their crusts darken at the touch

of flame. At the intersection, little boys
wait with rags to buff and shine the crowns of
leather shoes, and stray dogs roam the alleys

with hungry eyes. I turn and wonder
how the lake’s four corners have folded
into a handkerchief; how, looking

straight up from the street, the church’s twin
spires are compass points spinning slowly and I
their dizzy fulcrum, planted on the ground.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.