1.
I have this dream where I am the Daughter of the Machinist.
My father, balancing pipes that lead to other pipes, dropping
a marble ball. Precision as love, without remainders, without
the toothy excess of spiral bound notebooks. I cut love clean.
Instead, I am the Daughter of the Gambler. Who is winning this
staring contest? I ask my father. I dare you to blink! Slumped slug,
he spills all the chips on the table and says nothing, always
nothing. Chirp, chirp, goes the robin, Robber of Dreams.
All around me, Atlantic City butters itself with dinner rolls, roiling
ocean bilge. No one looks me in the eye. Here is the Daughter,
spun in boardwalk cotton candy, puke perfect. Here is the Father,
saying I am your father. Village after village, fishmongers walk away
from their fish, drawn to city stupor. Dream of the Dung Beetle,
I soothe. Of its celestial turns, simple machinations in muck.
2.
With each celestial turn, each match, I am mucked, soothed not –
no tooth under no pillow. I gnaw on a spare rib to teethe myself,
delicious. Dream of the Baby Owl, twisting its bright eye onto
you. When I was born, I did not cry or blink, a Telescope Doll,
spittle spun and talcum tossed. My mother told me she’s the only
beauty left in this world. I knocked my gavel in agreement. Hear,
hear. Song of Justice, Just Enough. Today, the planets gnaw on
their nails in smoke, exhausted. I wipe CO2 from my memory,
in a circular motion, waving hello. In a photograph, my mother
cradles me in New York and I: shaking a fist in front of a statue
of a white general who did not go to jail for murder. Across
the street: Casino Buses of Lost Dreams arrive in Chinatown
with red cigarette streamers. Here, the ghosts cry so loudly you
can see their breath in alleyways, winter wailing down to rats.
3.
Rats seethe in alleyway walls, winter there can not fall down
sooner. My brother, born in the blue flame of February,
is my mirror kin. Together, we kick everything in sight
to see better. Ant hill, MSG bin, box of plastic cutlery
clanging a xylophone avant-garde. We raise seashells to
our ears and hear nothing but garbage trucks lifting all
that we waste but want. Crush crap, the Dinosaur of
Garbage gobbles. Together, the Restaurant Babies refill
napkin and sauce containers like regurgitating bird food.
We sing of duck sauce and chili and straws pulled down
by levers, levitating in tubular innovation. Customers
furnish their mouths with lacquered loins, a pork
procession. Dream of the Country that Shall Not Be
Named, coins in clouds held over our heads like carrots.
4.
Head in the clouds, I coined a name: Hellish Careless Rot.
What I called the garden my father smoked in, seeds of
ash and fire spit. Cilantro stems under boots of drunk
men demanding payback for oceans they’ve crossed,
convinced the Ocean crossed them. Cross my heart, my
father swears, eyes as red as a rabbit, Grazer of Nothing.
Tomatoes roll down sidewalks, little splats of startling
summer. Dream of My Heart Rolling Away, state by
state. Late July, my grandmother clips green vines with
her claws, wears it as jade. The garden simmers in brackish
brown slush. Rot like armpits, rot like lizard eyes. I dream
of string beans so long, they lineage. My Mother the Gardener
digs deep like every worm I’ve known. She overturns the soil,
the Living freshly furrowed. I want a vegetal love, she lulls.
5.
She loves all that is living: wants fresh fur, a lullaby of vegetables
to sing her aching bones to sleep. My mother stretches snake-like,
hissing at machines she furnishes with envelopes. Her body over
worked, my love flying around her like a bat. Frantic flight, I echo
won’t you take a day off? Dream of Labor as Love. Overtime is time
and a half, the Half Moon coos. My Bat Love: her kindly blind
kin. Equations of the Equator calculate. Night shift after night
shift equals sedimentary sleep. At Pimple Dusk, my brother
inspects stubble on his chin, looks like the Father as Adolescent
Idol. Year after year, we watch banks being built on ancient
ground, money sprouting rabbit ears and rivers receding in
recession. My father blinks a bottle away, wobbles in his wonder,
where is the Daughter? If by mountain, canyon, forest, or heart
ambled. Daughter, I have this dream where I say what I mean, first.