A man once told me no one cares about anyone else’s dreams

but last night I was holding a baby in mine. It has been so long since

I held a baby. I am days from the end of my baby-making years and

years past the end of my baby-aching days. I dreamed I held this infant

close to my chest, so close our heart rhythms synced. Stereo beats

in rapid succession as we raced through the mall. Baby and I are in

a shopping mall, the kind I haven’t roamed in ages—boxed air,

layered scents of excess; a cacophony of voices competing

with soundtracks for every color of mood; massive fake ferns, plastic

vines and chlorine spray off a waterfall illuminated from within.

Above, a dingy skylight bombarded by thunderheads threatening

to unleash their worst, lightning flashes—No—smoke and bursts from

explosions on the horizon. I am trying to calm the baby in my dream,

slow our hearts stampeding through the mall. I am pleading

but everyone goes on shopping like nothing is happening, as if

the distance between us and devastation isn’t shrinking. We are

sound in the bosom of a killer sale and there is no baby needs saving.

I heard on the news that when power went out at the hospital

they could not run the incubators in the NICU, and so they packed

all the preemies in one bed to try and keep them warm—alive. A few

nights later, my daughter showed me photo after photo of babies

nestled in, well, nests—like newly hatched birds without wings. Tiny

naked newborns that could fit curled up in two cupped palms,

and I can’t stop thinking They must be so cold, those babies. So cold