AN

AMERICAN

DREAM
My parents’ first bed in their first American house
was a battered mattress dumped on the street
bare among crisp living-room curtains
stitched from an assemblage of sheets.
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At dinner they would stand by the pale kitchen counter
munch pasty potato salad that crunched
with juicy apple bits in buoyant
bites of fresh opportunity.
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By the time I was born they had a real bed, mattress
hoisted high beyond my squat fingertips
which grasped for tough gripped hands tender-veined
from study, scrubbing, restless dreams.
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We moved to a two-story suburban dream, roof green
rimmed with promises of plushy carpet
caterpillars and a neon pool
pastel chalk down the street to school.
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But I remember from my father’s closed office room
a tinge of gray drowning in soft opera
tears blurred the charming cul-de-sac
in a somber, strained hollowness.
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My parents sitting in memories of their leaking
volvo in the rain, wooden floors
vacant besides puddles and their torn
but warm mattress from slumberous nights.
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