We girls are sleeping in my room—
Shelley and Sharon and I in my bed
and Stacey in the rollaway.
Outside, the waning crescent
is just a peel of a moon.
“Do you sleep on the floor at home?” Stacey asks.
“No,” Sharon says, “but we can here.”
We all get out of bed
and put the mattresses on the floor.
“This is how to sleep Nihon-teki,” Shelley says.
“What did you dream about last night?” Stacey asks.
I had told her about hatsuyume.
Sharon says, “I had a bad dream—
a rat was chasing me around the house
and trying to bite me.”
“I hate those dreams,” Stacey says. “Then
I’m so happy to wake up.”
Shelley says, “Mine was a nightmare, too—
school started early and I didn’t have my homework.”
“I hate those dreams,” I say.
I wonder if my cousins are lying.
I wonder if they really had good dreams
but don’t want to tell them—
don’t want to let them go.
Then Stacey says, “I dreamed I was riding in a car
with Victor, and Mother was driving.
I wonder what that meant.”
“You’ll have to write and tell us,” Sharon says.
“What about Mimi’s dream?” she asks,
and they all turn to me.
I dreamed about flying again,
this time in a spaceship.
I will not let go of that dream,
so I say, “Hmm,
I didn’t dream last night.”
Then I close my eyes to the moon,
and the girls keep talking. Soon
their voices sound like snow against the windows.
I am drifting
to sleep,
eager
to fly again.