At the bridge’s summit, approaching the city,
the towers of downtown loom beyond the abutment,
their upper stories hidden by a dense lamina of mist:
on their way up the sky, distinct shapes dissolve
in the foam of dreams. Blocked from sunlight,
lower windows are listless as sleepy eyes.

     Once, in the Ozarks,
       I drove into a rain cloud
that had settled on a mountain. 
          Along the ridge
ghostly tree trunks sleep-walked
     where the road sagged
   and yawed from scarp to open shoulder’s
            abyss lost in fog.
     I had to guess
the slight way between rock and air.
           I wondered whether I was awake.

Often when a sleep front moves across
the map of my brain, the rational grid of city blocks I’ve raised
mutates into mountains where wolves and goblins slink
in and out of a shifting haze.
The hard lines of thought I thrust skyward vanish
in mists that rise from the mind itself,
that hide the castle I steal into at the other end of the beanstalk,
the way impenetrable when day returns.