All Our Yesterdays

Father writes textbooks,
Big thick fat ones littered with Greek.
Mother knits, her criss-crossing needles
Keeping you awake
Long after you reintroduce yourself
To the almond darkness.

You imagine princes with sharp swords
Dancing a jig. You imagine them laughing.
You think of their hats, covered
With the feathers of a dead bird.

*

In days past,
You would have been a fruit vendor.
You love papayas
(Did they have those back then?)
And pineapples remind you
Of a love you might have.

At night, you sing yourself to bed
Then sleepwalk to opera houses.
Every one of your friends is someone else.
Nobody breathes.

*

Your mornings go the same way, usually.
The sleeptalker from afar the twin bed
Mumbles something about blue moons,
And you fall back asleep for two days.
Then your eggs are getting cold.

There are no trees where you live.
You mow your own lawn,
Imagining each blade to be
A one-half inch soldier
Off to war,
And you their barber.

*

You have a mirror you have never looked at,
In a similar room. You eat mangos at odd hours,
The juice dripping down your rough chin,
Staining the current pages
Of your yellowed King Arthur fable,
All the while being reminded
Of someone else, met in a dream.