There are dream figures who do not come and go like weather. They return. You wake remembering them. Their gaze lingers behind your eyes. For me, it is always the little yellow bird and the masked woman in black. They do not arrive together. One night, the bird lands on a branch just outside my window, glowing like gold leaf under moonlight. Another night, the woman appears in a corridor of half-light, her gaze both fierce and forgiving. She wears a mask shaped like a bird’s