[In last night’s dream, I collected my dead mother in my arms]

by Kevin Phan

 

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In last night’s dream, I collected my dead mother in my arms. Sky overhead, where whole weather systems bruised & healed, bruised & healed. A single line you spoke, though your jawbone was deleted by the surgeons—“Being dead is like being alive, only a little different.” The room was living & there you were, in it. (Fresh flying joy to hear your garbled voice, despite the koan from your lips!)  When I reached out to touch your back, you curlyqued through the floorboards. Blue-gray smoke. Pepperidge Farm goldfish floated through the room. (Ancestors returning from oblivion come back to know their voice.) Genes & needs you buried in my blood. Soft crown of bone, a crown of love. Ancestors passing through the heart’s soft walls. So much of being a being is want. Have you found a god to worship in the afterlife? She wrathful or super chill? How many dreams of dears, beloveds until my mouth opens like sweet honey from a rock?

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KEVIN PHAN is a Vietnamese-American graduate of the University of Michigan with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing in 2013 & from the University of Iowa with a B.A. in English Literature in 2005. He is a former Helen Zell Writers’ Program Postgraduate Fellow at the University of Michigan. His work has been featured (or is forthcoming) in Columbia Review, Poetry Northwest, Georgia Review, Conjunctions (online), Crab Orchard Review, Fence, Pleiades, Gulf Coast, Colorado Review, SubTropics, Crazyhorse, Hayden’s Ferry Review, & elsewhere. His first collection of poetry will be published through Colorado State University’s Center for Literary Publishing in 2020.