when I was little I dreamed again and again of a playground that didn’t exist. it was in doyle field’s football field. it was the elusive playground I could never reach—the most wonderful of shining playgrounds—the dream always the same. It was across from priest street school—across from the playground where a man stood at the edge of the woods, his penis poked through his fly. wiggled at me. beckoning with his finger. i looked. i was four. i shook my head no continued playing.
but that wasn’t the recurring dream, just the playground part.
what I dream of now is waves. enormous furls of water about to crash over me. i run, I drive as they encroach. i see them rising towards me. but I am safe.
is it because I was supposed to be there? our hotel gone.
i was supposed to be there, waves rolling over my head. watery insides. flooded breath.
it was the south of thailand. khatoey-ridden phuket. we fled to singapore then planned to return. instead, off to india—our hotel destroyed.
it’s always the waves.
three years after the tsunami we found ourselves in thailand once again. on phi phi island. how many people died there? everything seemed back to normal, but sad. there was the happiness of so many clusters of green coconuts at tops of trees. the green green green. the clear turquoise water. the bobbing long-tailed boats. and the wind. there, in the andaman sea.
the tree outside our thatched bungalow scattered tamarind pods on the ground. they burst beneath my feet. the light filtered through bamboo. it was hot. the gecko on the ceiling-chirping.
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