The experience of fear is not an observer of it; he is fear itself, the very instrument of fear.
--J. Krishnamurti

In dreams I descend
into the cave of my past:
a child with a morgue-tag
on its toe,
the terrible metal squeaking
of the morgue-drawers,
& the chilly basement
& the slam of doors.

Or else I am setting up dreamhouse,
with the wife
of my second ex-husband.
She complains of him
with breaking sorrow--
& I comfort her.
(She only married him, it seems, for me).

Sometimes I wake up naked
in Beverly Hills--
the table set for ten, a formal dinner--
a studio chief on my left side,
a fabled actor on my right.
Across the table,
Greta Garbo, Scott Fitzgerald,
John F. Kennedy & Marilyn Monroe--

& I alone not properly dressed for dinner,
& besides unprepared
for the final exam,
in which our immortality
will be tested,
& one of us shall perish
as dessert.

Send parachutes & kisses!
Send them quick!
I am descending into the cave
of my own fear.
My feet are weighted
with the leg-irons of the past.
The elevator plummets
in the shaft.

trapped, trapped in the bowels
of my dream,
locked in the cellar
by myself the jailer.
Rats and spiders scuttle
through the coal bin.
I cower in the corner.

I am fear.

© Erica Mann Jong

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