Reading American Dreams

My grandmother’s pearls,

resting in palms.

Not the absence of touch,

Absence of tongue - mother passing our drinks, 

her womb usurped

She, too, holds the pearls.

Unfurling from cocoon,

Wings pinned;     six, no, eight legs?

Failing to catch air beneath.

Grieving loss, never had,

Textbooks await, violation of alien characters

leaking through stiff spine

Greyscale screen flashes,

Across the blue wall.

Light moves slow.

Her grandsons watch,

resting in palms, to be rested.

*This work was published in Eunoia Review on November 19, 2025.

https://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/2025/11/19/reading-american-dreams/