Green Dream

"In the dream where I am an island,
I grow green with hope. I'd like to end there."
                                        ~ Jericho Brown

I'd like not to end as the flashy green curtain 
of a northern dawn: elusive as too-distant smoke.
 
Give me the green of moss: spoon-leaved, 
heather-starred,  tamarisked; knight-plumed 

or pincushioned, pushing back against my hand. 
Or the green cup of absinthe, waiting to be doused 

in flame or sugar water. I lay my ear against 
the window of night, listening to the last green 

notes a bird carols in the wood. I run the song, flecked 
silver and green, like a mother-of-pearl comb through 

my hair. It's graying now, unspooling the years 
once taut and green. What it was at the beginning.