my mother told me that her mother
came back to her in a dream
mixing sanka,
leaving a lipstick kiss
on the mug’s lip.
even in the dream,
the house smelled
of camphor
to keep moths
from eating holes
in this memory.
she covered her chairs and sofa
in plastic just like
us who grew up
in school auditoriums,
dragged in and hushed, Watch!
the first teacher shot into space.
then our teachers, red quick
with no time for supplies.
we, tiny nubs of chalk,
our fingers petrified white,
drew hop-scotch cubes
in the emergency recess(es),
the way the fingertip of the shuttle
turned white as it pressed
into the sky’s dark upholstery.
when she died,
we stripped the furniture naked,
pushed the sofa onto a flatbed:
body into furnace
sand in glass,
the navy pilot figure
I placed in the coffin
next to her body.
dream or not,
you can choose to pick out one voice
through the bluzzh of a crowded room.
my mother said it’s just a dream
not really her mother.
still, one midnight many midnights ago,
on a black and white set,
I lie watching new year’s fireworks
with my grandmother
in the bed my own mother slept in.
what can’t live in pristine
shape inside the shape
of your pink plastic mind?
myvocabularydidthistome.com 