Alexandria in a Dream   In a dream, Alexandria, a boy, ten, a girl, five sit on the sands, playing their love is a given, and, like the blue of the Mediterranean, unquestioned   the reel of the dream advances them to fifteen and twenty nothing has changed in their affections, in Alexandria where days are lazy in the nineteenth century, where a stroll through the streets, is the usual evening activity   On this occasion, her mother meets him, questions his intentions; he is not certain, disappointment; philosophic, mother sits on a bench, beads wrapped thrice around her neck, a daughter on either side, as a photographer captures them   Now he is graduating, an advocate, with highest honours; in a speech he declares his love for her, his plans for marriage and I rush to find her, tell her   Winds, the screech of a falcon, the scratch of a cat on the door, open my eyes to morning, to wonder if the dream was a glimpse into a past world, or perhaps a parallel one   Or if somehow I should come across a photograph, old and yellowed, of a woman with necklace and daughters, and know it was so   © 4.2008 Helen Bar-Lev