Standing in a room painted red, staring at a book on a table. There are no windows, there are no doors, a light swings from a rusty cable. Music plays through the walls, voices speak through the floor, a chill runs down my neck, I spun around, tripped, then landed on the floor.

The air was sweet, the sand was warm, the water splashed our feet. Walking on the beach the waves began to form, two became a beautiful three, then time brewed a terrible storm. Then she flinched with gritted teeth and in her eyes a look of scorn. Then she turned her back on me, her halo turned into horns. Then she vanished from the dream leaving the sky broken and torn.

The book slammed shut and the room began to shake, then a cloaked figure stepped out of the shadows, and walked over to where I lay. Then a door appeared on the red wall, and the cloaked figure stepped outside. He was holding a sword in his left hand, and a list of names in his right. The cloaked figure smiled at me then vanished out of sight.

Standing in a room painted red, staring at a book on a table. There are no windows, there are no doors.

I must be dead.

three sets of withered, wrinkly hands
with chipped
tired
pale-pink nailpolish
flutter in the air,
describing.

three froofy perms
one browny-gray
one white
one salt and pepper
bob
jutting forward,
one
wobbles a little.

Grandma wears
a green-foam party hat
with a thin, white elastic band
that runs under her wrinkled chin
it sits atop her fuzzy perm
comically...
she smiles
at me.

"Ah! my cappuccino! you remembered i like it, didn't you?"
she chucks her great-granddaughter
under the chin,
grins
"oohh! look at these gardening gloves! Cidi! look at these gloves! i like the green ones."
she hands them to her white-haired sister
aunt cidi told me
this year she is
ninety-one
oh, and the gloves were really
blue.

aunt cidi
misses uncle harland
he was buried three or four years ago
in his uniform
i remember sitting next to him
at awkward family reunions
eating hotdogs
i never saw so much mustard
in my life
he could never hear me
when i tried to talk to him
but he smiled
anyway.

the talk turns serious
suddenly
over our black coffee
crossed legs
sweaters
and chocolate cake
grandma turns grim
in her lime-green party hat
"did you end up killing that trumpet vine in your yard, Jeanie?"
aunt jeanie's head wobbles a bit
she squints
wrinkles her nose
"i TRIED to!"
she scowls.

schemes of ******
plotted by three chunky-earringed
sweet
old ladies
who are a little late
for the 1940's
but never too late
for a handsome
soldier
"we're older..."
says aunt jeanie
"but not THAT old!"
they all
giggle.