poem draft

The fragility of historiography

Watching TV, thinking about a dream I’d just had about Jerry Orbach
when the dog, telling a joke, used his name.
I turned to you, somehow proud of, then frozen by, this coincidence
and unlike the dog couldn't speak. I knew you wouldn’t believe me,
that if it ever came up after that very night

I would have thought you were right
when you’d say that first we watched cartoons,
and only later could I have dreamed about Jerry Orbach

We might even decide I'd gone to sleep watching Law and Order.