The following can also be found in the book Chicago Stories 1998. Click here to learn more, and to download a free electronic copy.

She let me take a photograph of her naked so I could keep it at home. So I could masturbate to it when I was lonely.

No, that's not true. That's something I dreamt about this morning before I woke up to see if my alarm had woken me up yet.

I wrote a poem about her last week and I used this line in the poem, "I wrote a poem about her last week."

No, that's not true, either. I never wrote that poem. I dreamt that I wrote a poem about her last week and that I used that line in the poem, and now I really am writing a poem about her and using that line in the poem, "I wrote a poem about her last week."

I have to get up at 10:30 this morning and I set my alarm except I have a habit of sleeping through my alarm so all morning my body keeps waking me up to check and see if my alarm's woken me up yet. And the whole thing starts all over again.

The photograph is of her in the bathtub. We used to date but now we don't but she felt sorry for me because I can't have sex anymore, so she let me come in and take a photograph of her so I could masturbate to it at home whenever I want.

No, that's not true. I don't know her. I dreamt of a woman who is in a magazine I own full of photographs of naked women that I masturbate to when I'm lonely.

I take the photograph and masturbate to it this morning. This is real. I am writing a poem and this is also real. It is 10:01 a.m. and my alarm is still on. I leave it on in case I fall asleep again.

I wrote a poem about her last week and I used this line, "I wrote a poem about her last week." This line is caught in my head. It's not true. I don't know her. She is a photograph in a bathtub in a magazine of photographs of naked women that I bought to masturbate to when I'm lonely. And now I'm writing a poem about her to make the poem real.

There's a group of women poets in Chicago I know that just formed a performance group. This is real. I keep having weird dreams about them. This is also real. Last night I dreamt that one of them felt sorry for me and let me take a photograph of her naked so I could masturbate to it when I was lonely. She was in a bathtub and she lifted her hips out of the water so that I could see between her legs in the photograph when I masturbated to it.

Except the woman's not a poet. She's a woman in a photograph in a bathtub in a magazine full of photographs of naked women I bought to masturbate to when I'm lonely. And I was lonely this morning so I took out the magazine and I masturbated to the photograph so now it's real. And now I've written the poem I dreamt about so now that's real too.

The clock hits 10:30 and my alarm goes off. I turn off my alarm and decide to go back to sleep.