Excerpt from draft, "Studio Dreams"

I had a dream right before I left 
the heart flower paper airplane cage.
here is what happened.  there was 
hats and fathers
an ornate white bird cage 
brown leather bird mask
feathers
on the floor, tiny wooden toy 
huts
cars
wheeled animals 
the trees lost their heads
at the side swipe of a little boy’s hand.
& then the whirring 
{a hummingbird’s wings,
a teleportation device
an enthusiastic audience claps 
jet fueled grass-faced spirit dances}

falling. air tunnel. heart racing don’t care
snap ~ a hay colored parachute.
knees impact like an angry slap.
the black road burns off a layer of callouses.
dust. an armadillo.  a rusty truck 
one flower petulantly stares at a cloudless sky
horses Alice Walker the rolling hills. 
then, 

I am confused. 
the palm trees take off their masks. 
{ghost goat girl in her purple dress
waves and motions to me 
we meander a maze of wooden shacks
to the old slaughter house.
she dips one toe in the stone trough
where the blood ran off. & disappears.)

I shimmy under the shed. collect a jaw bone.
an old woman with snakes for hair 
shakes a backbone bellowing laughter.

a sudden reluctant peace crashes through my sternum 
erupts from my tear ducts when I realize the old woman is me
and this is the lost dream of a 20 year old girl
resurrected and frail.  presumed dead just like all the other 


good little Brown girls no one remembers. 

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