Only In Our Sleep

March 12, 2011

Only In Our Sleep

Swift steps in the night,
a nylon bag slides across the floor.
Inside: plush toys, plastic robots,
stickers, twigs, a worn gray lamb,
glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs.
I reach—a quick scramble
and you cocoon into my shoulder, a chrysalis son,
curved toes take root against your father.
All huddle under down and cotton.
I hold this pliant flesh, soft hair,
inhale the scent of sleep.
Insect fingers work the yarn of a green blanket,
a nimble soothe to slumber.
Your father stirs, the low rumble of heavy sleep.
I turn and stare into the night
drift into memory against the white walls,
toss back to four years ago.

February—the dry chill of a Los Angeles winter,
and the long wait. Perched on a toilet seat
I twist my torso, dark mucous afloat in the water.
The inevitable begins: I cry out in fear,
seek refuge in the arms of your father.
Pack, unpack, repack: I forget anyway—in hospital
my legs freeze, my torso burns.
The contortions. The buckling.
Heave, sweat, shake, ferocious beyond control.
The leak and spew of urine, vomit and blood.
I writhe in anguish, desire nothing but your arrival.
A fierce and determined birth—they all are.
Three days to the beginning and end;
I collapse with joy and relief.

In the early months, wide with hope
we ate belief—delicious, crisp, perfectly prepared.
We licked the salt and sweet of possibility
and before us loomed a bucolic idyll: rows of books,
endless forests, chills chased by fires,
a son to grow by our side.
We slept parallel—a tiny head touched one,
palm-size feet another. A family
flesh to flesh, our dreams punctuated by
dolphin chirps and sharp cries.
We ate breakfast
watched you reach for light
as the Hippeastrum
on the table arched for the sun.
It sprang from its bulb
in soft white glory,
the barest trace of pink.

The shift happened; we knew it would.
Your father—a man of early departure, late arrival,
toil that burns his sorrow to permanence.
His fatigue is etched in furrowed brows and bleary eyes,
oh, how he longs for escape!
Your mother—runs through days that dissolve in her mouth.
Feather lines now frame her eyes.
In exile from conversation and country
she retreats in determined isolation.
For both, the memory of homeland,
the distance of private suffering,
the sweetness buried under burdens.
They spit dollars and bills,
speak in syllables and fragments,
silently march forward
reluctant members of the industrialized world
kicking thoughts that crush their breath.
The sardonic laugh. The unspoken.
This love of crazy hope
for something.
The day descends and always—the air surrounds, drowns.
The filth suffocates, drills holes in lungs,
shatters cells and years like glass.
The desperate gasp, the urgent breath,
all cough heavy metals
weep at brown skies.
This is Hong Kong.

In sleep we are free to reunite
we three, as it should be.
The rise of dreaming bodies,
the kicks and wrinkled sheets,
the whispers and comfort of the dark.
A hand is squeezed, a forehead kissed.
The dreams, oh how they leak:
husband-to-wife, mother-to-son, son-to-father,
nose-to-nose, back-to-back.
We breathe in each other’s sighs
a familiar scent wraps us close,
binds us in comfort and conflict.
This is the truth of flesh.
Lost in blissful reverie, shocked by morning light
the denial split by the sun
we awaken to begin again
and again and again.
Such fervid belief clasped and cupped
in defiance of what will come.
We are here! We are here!
A temporal halt to the end that lies at bay.
But for now we ride this hope—live this love
together and apart,
only in our sleep,
only in our dreams.