Daydreaming While Reading

Anyone who has ever read anything has done it, your mind meanders off while your eyes continue to scroll across and down the page.

You’re grounded on floor level at first, following the main character down a white hallway and your thoughts begin to loosen and float up, a plastic bag in a light breeze, because

you need to remember to change over the laundry from washer to dryer before you go to bed tonight so you have fresh clothes for tomorrow, which is Friday, and you’re going out to

Wait. Where am I How long have I been Did I actually turn the page while Ok. Start over.

It’s something you did when you were young, which is why you can’t remember how Hansel and Gretel escaped, or why the fork ran away with the spoon.

Even now, when you re-read Dr. Seuss as an adult, you do it, which is why his stories still seem so open to metaphor. Even though you read Steinback cover to cover, you weren’t able to contribute much

at your last book club meeting. For this may be the real reason you didn’t understand Ezra Pound, and why you didn’t get as much out of Ulysses as you were supposed to.

Odysseus made it home eventually, you know that much, but your thoughts seemed to travel farther than he did, even with your eyes zigzagging across the page.

For there is an inner eye that must open when you read, so words can breathe in like fresh air and keep your mind from growing stale, which may be why you’re not sure

what I mean when I say that you should read James Joyce again, but you don’t mind, it may not be too important, besides,

there’s only one stanza left until this poem is finished, and I think the washing machine just buzzed.