dream

My childhood home, guests. I go upstairs for quiet. In Paul's room, once mine, with my high bed and the desk underneath. Nick's things are in boxes on the floor and the window seat. I open the door. He and a blond woman are seated at the desk with their backs to me.

In the kitchen, my mother tells a story about homesickness. She stands near the countertop with the green tiles and says that when she was in Vietnam she was so homesick that she scheduled a flight over California. When she was overhead, she called her older sister, Jane, to say: "Look up here — it's me." She made a wide wave in the air with her open palm.