0 Dream Work

1.

Another morning and I awaken thirsty;
my palm cups your warm thigh stretching
over mine.

2.

I am scared of the rain; the rain asks
who are you?

3.

I grew up in the dry Central Valley
of California, far away from the
small town of Jalisco, Mexico
from which my grandparents immigrated,
their tired and irritable bodies hunched over
the American dream, promising
their grandchildren a better life
for a certain price.

4.

Your body strokes the bed sheets
like the sound of turning pages.

5.

For thirty years, my grandma
sat alone at the kitchen table
with her pan dulce and coffee,
cleaned the house, fed her six children,
cracked open my grandfather’s beers, and
took his hard hand, accepting her life.

6.

Making love to you
is my only form of travel:
I climb on top of you to begin
my pilgrimage back home.


7.

Did you know
there are rivers that flow
underneath the ocean
in Mexico?
Streams of life,
drowning.

8.

I am hungry for your body;
your flesh in my small mouth smells of masa
damp with murky water from the tap,
the same masa that sat flattened on the
comal that we topped with meat and beans
to make sopes for dinner,
to nourish my empty heart—

9.

My grandma’s dreams shriveled
in her hands as she held them to my lips;
I cannot afford the price
of my dreams to keep hers alive, and
I am ashamed.

10.

Wading in the waves of fantasy,
your pale back blends with the ivory moonlight,
healing your scars, but pulling your body
away from mine.

11.

Rain falls over
the layers
of weathered dust
that cover the earth
and my body.

--Michael G., 19