L.I.C. (The Dream)
Stephanie Laterza
Published 11/15/03

I inhale the breezes

Between drifting and waking;

Dreaming of soft waves that caress sunlit shores

Painted on the side of a sand colored candle.

 

On the windowsill,

On chipped white painted shores,

The East River water

East bitter water

Washes the smell of gray Brillo shreds

Under the white quiet moon.

 

In iron blue skies like shingles

Sand and damp and rust tangle

In clumps of seaweed, green oysters of moss.

 

The East River water rocks and recedes,

Sleeps and drifts back into green sewage tunnels.

And the ambulance siren tears out her hair

tangled in copper Con-Edison wires,

All the while puffing on red and white striped pipes,

The color of inverted Marlboro reds.

 

Socrates stares across the river with a palm up.

In his park near the other statues,

Come with a blanket on the rusty yellow grass

And smell the river.

-Stephanie Laterza