Without the sun filtered through closed eyelids,
without the siren along the service road,
without Grandpa’s ginger-colored hair,
Mother’s lipstick, Daughter’s manicure,
firecrackers, a monkey’s ass, a cherry, Rei’s lost elephant,
without communist or past tense,
or a character seeing her own chopped-off feet dancing in fairy slippers,
or Mao’s favorite novel about a chamber —
the scientist of sleep has claimed
that without warm blood a creature cannot dream.
