Ghosts of the Night Shift

Last night, for no reason I could name,
I dreamed them all together –
the loved and lost beneath one sky,
walking the same strange country.

I reached for them with open hands,
offering all the help I had,
but one by one they turned away
as if love had forgotten me.

Only my dog remained –
quiet witness, faithful shadow –
keeping pace through every room,
asking nothing, leaving never.

But waking knows what dreaming bends:
my mother loved me beyond measure;
my husband would not have refused
the hand he once held close.

Dreams wear the masks of grief and fear;
they speak in doors that will not open,
in vanished hours, unfinished words,
in all the moments time misplaced.

Still, sometimes memory returns kindly –
a voice, a laugh, a sunlit day –
and sometimes, past the edge of sleep,
the road ahead begins to shine.

So I keep dreaming what is gone,
and what may yet come home to me,
while at my side, through dark and dawn,
one loyal heart keeps watch.

And when tomorrow calls my name,
I’ll carry every love I’ve known –
not as a wound, but as a flame
to light the life that’s still my own.