MORNING HANGOVERS

--by Tammy Ho Lai-Ming and Reid Mitchell


Karen: I dreamed you played piano, pounding fists for lullabies. You wore a red shirt, all buttons undone. Mouth half-opened, but no voice from your throat.

Bertrand: I saw you dance out the open window, all the graces and furies upholding you and descend into the bright red street. They raise your velvet dress, now like an inverted parachute. You floated, for a second.

Karen: In the dream the music did end. Hearsay said there must be echoes; but there's none.

Bertrand: Not a footprint on the windowsill. Not a footfall in the street. Nobody danced to my lullabies.

Karen: When I woke I heard nothing. My toes were sore, as if they were trapped in tiny jewel boxes. A spec of red in my eye corner.

Bertrand: The piano's never going to sound right again.

("Morning Hangovers" was first published in Admit2, September 2008.)