Dream#42

by Mayadet Patitucci

Last night I dreamt I was my mother as a child.
Swimming by the shores of Puerto Rico - freely - wildly -
And stepping on white sand with tiny feet.
Knowing even in dream I was swimming
Somewhere far better where the rocks
were smooth to the touch and didn't
Stab through tender brown baby feet.

This was no cold dead fish Lake Michigan.
I dreamt I was my mother when she had her first kiss,
The other little girl not knowing why holding my mothers small hand
Felt so much better to her then her father's large sweat spiders
creeping over hers through the quiet dark.
She didn't understand that when my mother said she loved her
she didn't whisper it to her ear and dragged her tongue behind her neck.
When my mother said she loved her
she said it loudly behind thick walls
And proudly in front of stuffed bears and stewardess Barbie.

She didn't understand that when she said "I love you too" she meant it more then she ever will.

I dreamt last night that I was my mother the night she
Found out she was pregnant with my second sister.
I dreamt I was her the moment she told him
That everything was fine and she wasn't pregnant at all,
It was a rumor started by people
because that's what people do,
That he could still go back to Florida,
That she knew they weren't that serious
and that she wouldn't have wanted to go live with him
and his family in far-away Cuba anyway.
I dreamt I was my mother the moment she realized
she will never see him again because he will never know...

Of the curled milky ball of loved and hated tissue.

Last night I dreamt I was my mother the day
She was pushed into a corner and
Her family stood in line,
- One behind the other -
And took turns beating her.
Earlier that day her brother saw her
in between dark buildings holding and kissing
a girl by her fingertips - she looked happy.
I dreamt I was my mother when her brother spat in her face
And when her mother dragged her by the hair - nails firmly in -
across the living room and into the street.

I dreamt of the bleeding swollen scalp
and bruised hands of hair
she held to her chest when she tried to sleep.

I dreamt I was my mother
the morning she gave birth to my lifeless sister.
Umbilical cord wrapped around her blue neck
I dreamt I was my mother when she named the
body for the death certificate: Mallory,

To the Greeks meaning to be born luckless.

I dreamt I was my mother the nights she ran
to her father coming home from working at the docks,
Jumping on his back and hugging his head.
Steering him with her tiny hands to dinner.
I dreamt I was her when she would laugh at his laugh.
I dreamt I was my mother when she told her daughters
about their dead grandfather's laugh,
loud as the waves and wide as the sea,

always at night with el chavo del ocho on the TV.
I dreamt last night I was my mother
on the nights when her grandmother would baby-sit for her.
I dreamt I was her kneeling on raw rice in a corner
Two bibles on two out stretched hands,
I dreamt I was my mother the moment she would drop a bible to the floor
And when a belt would find its way to her thin-catholic palms
And slice them for being human:

I dreamt I saw my mother turn to a pillar of salt.

I dreamt I was my mother,
In Chicago - barefoot and nine months pregnant
Bent over a tub, rubbing knuckles raw
to clean my father's shirt.
I dreamt I was her pulling buckets of hot water
out of the microwave because the heat was off.
I dreamt I was my mother wiping sweat from her chest,
thinking of a young girl who was born
in-between dark buildings and died there.
Of a girl who was told she was loved and loved back.
Of lost fathers and bloody hands,
Of unlucky babies and unread bibles.
Of spit and laughs and water.

Sudsy water.
Flowing water.

Last night I dreamt I was my mother as a child.
Swimming by the shores of Puerto Rico -
Wild and free.