Dream of a White Coat

this dream never really died
it just transmuted into the unrecognized
carried in me like a body on a stretcher
and laid out for visitation
on a foggy Irish night
in a cottage
with whiskey and bread

it wore a white coat when I was young
a paramedic

it wore a white coat when i was in high school
late night studies of chromosomes and lysosomes

it wore a white coat when I became a butcher
and it wore a white coat finding dreams in the library stacks

it wore a cheap suit in an office where it cried
and none would argue it tried to appear
but I don't know where it went
maybe up north on a site by a tent