For María
R. Avy Harris
They say dreams can predict the future
but mine stubbornly dwell in the realm of the past
and last night I heard her voice mispronounce my name
from the foot of her stairs half a cut continent away.
In Mexico the blankets are thick and hard to push off at sunrise,
like the confusion of early morning dreams, illusions of being at home.
She had the last word in those dreams,
and last night I thought I’d returned.
It’s been three months and still I know her eyes,
small and steel reflecting flame while she lights the stove for fried eggs
and warmth. Even in the summer these mountains are damp.
I never knew the words but shivered instead – she would nod her head,
press hot tea into my palms and turn back to the task at hand.
Setting plates on the table I once drifted
into the dreams I imagined she had – did she envision a tomorrow
when her sons returned from El Norte, triumphant and whole?
When she was once again indifferent towards the mail,
anticipating neither California stamps nor fearing their absence.
Were her dreams loud like laughter,
children and grandchildren overflowing her home? Or did she dream in yesterdays and might-have-beens?
The hand of a husband holding her as she sleep, the whisper of lullabies lying to rest,
the first tomatoes ripening on new vines
all those years ago.
Dictionaries won’t translate the color of dreams and hers resolutely wait just behind steel eyes, both trapped and tempted by the light.
Today I’ll finally write that letter, sign the photo
we took together in her doorway. We both look a little surprised,
not quite ready to be permanently placed so close together
yet neither prepared to move away.
When I seal the envelope I’ll imagine her opening it again,
chuckling when she sees herself and humming as she sets it on the nightstand.
Perhaps some morning she will glance at us
and, in the mist of waking, not know if I am really there
or just another softly fading dream.
