As/Is







12.12.2003



Field Study: Dream

You are walking with your father on the lawns
of a quiet neighborhood. The lawns are wet
and neither of you have shoes. You sense the blue bathrobes
the two of you wear may be inappropriate. At a house
you arrive unannounced and a man answers, says nothing
though he could be acting a touch surprised. You're not sure.
Where is your father? You notice windows, ridiculously
curved and paperthin. The man leads downstairs
where his high school daughter has just dressed.
She smells like Chanel and the beach, more beach.
Her breasts seem immaculate. More massive,
impossibly fine windows. The room fueled by light.
Her father leaves and the way everyone is acting you think
it may be a holiday. You try to help, it is your duty
to show her words, but her breasts keep fumbling into
the words and she is totally aloof, seeming to know
that each flip of hair releases into the room more beach.
You explain the midnight sun phenomenon. The speed
by which life must react. "Are you seeing illusions?" she asks.
Her word choice concerns you: illusions instead of
delusions. Where has your father gone?
You smell diesel from above and a small jet is wobbling
down, separating silently into soft orange pieces that become peaceful
just beyond your horizon. They have leveled a cabin--you know.
You think you have died in the crash and sob in the daughter's arms.
You think your father has died in the crash and you sob.
You are uncertain who has died. Your eyes open to what's
in your palm: a chunk of amber with a bee center-encased.
The amber is clear. So is the bee, remarkably so.