Afternoon Dream

There is a swift river in flood;
I am on the wet bank

trying to tether a heavy raft
when the phone rings somewhere else.

'All that worry, there's no need for that.'
Your voice comes back to me where I am

with a request for pinenuts, eggplant, capers
and the doctor's reassuring diagnosis. Soon

the raft will break up on the rapids;
I can no longer picture its cargo.