Another Dream on an Old Theme
By Joan Mazza
Nov 15, 2025
Nov 15, 2025
Last night I traveled back in time
again to an office where the doctors work,
husband and wife, as I knew them
in the seventies. A friend is with me,
another patient. We take this chance
to have our say, but we’re herded
from waiting room to inner office,
with other people waiting, listening,
our grievances unheeded, unheard. Bob
plies his usual ploys, all smiles, to persuade
us both to make another appointment.
No one is allowed to succeed or leave.
The rooms are brightly lit and people
glide in, never out, in trance. Without anger
I say, I don’t want to spend good money
on a session. Invite me if you want to see me,
which is to say, I’d only come for free,
but I know that’s wrong, too. Even before
I wake, I know I’ll never go back
on any terms. Not even to say goodbye.
Have a good summer, I say, knowing
I won’t see him again. Polite,
as always, to the end. Or still afraid?
Like my parents, he isn’t dead in dreams.
These ghosts can haunt me
only if I let them. And I do.
again to an office where the doctors work,
husband and wife, as I knew them
in the seventies. A friend is with me,
another patient. We take this chance
to have our say, but we’re herded
from waiting room to inner office,
with other people waiting, listening,
our grievances unheeded, unheard. Bob
plies his usual ploys, all smiles, to persuade
us both to make another appointment.
No one is allowed to succeed or leave.
The rooms are brightly lit and people
glide in, never out, in trance. Without anger
I say, I don’t want to spend good money
on a session. Invite me if you want to see me,
which is to say, I’d only come for free,
but I know that’s wrong, too. Even before
I wake, I know I’ll never go back
on any terms. Not even to say goodbye.
Have a good summer, I say, knowing
I won’t see him again. Polite,
as always, to the end. Or still afraid?
Like my parents, he isn’t dead in dreams.
These ghosts can haunt me
only if I let them. And I do.
Joan Mazza has worked as a microbiologist and psychotherapist, and taught workshops on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six self-help psychology books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review, Italian Americana, Atlanta Review, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Slant, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia.