Editor’s Choice Award
by Eirené Archolekas
I am a captive of the American dream
in someone else’s head
I am the product of someone else’s choice
keeping silent slumber
In the hull that held the hopes of my mother,
Smelling street corners of piss
Reading signs behind shop windows, “No Greeks, No Rats”
Falling through the sidewalk cracks of neither White nor Black
“Ameriki Ameriki,” she kept repeating
“I am going to go to Ameriki”
She had wanted this self-fulfilling prophecy
from behind the white burlap sack of rice
compliments of Mr. Marshall
Ameriki, bubbled halos around the heads of kin
They packed quilts of her future life into a plaid suitcase
Topped the baulo in two wide leather buckles
To the rim with hand-embroidered dollies and photos
She resurfaced after a Pan Am night flight at JFK
It was the warm air of promise that inflated
the bouquet of their dreams
that lifted them right up into the friendly skies
Like a kind of birthday party inflatable
Yes, yes we are going to live in a three-bedroom house
Yes, we will never go hungry again
Yes, our children will rise higher than us
Tomorrow it will be better.
Railroad apartments running roaches
Be patient. Things will improve
50 cent per hour garment work hunched over till wee hours
the metal Singer drumming lullabies
Temporary, you’ll see. Make patience daughter.
All that hot air fissing fussing fighting
She was fed and fed penny by penny,
one garment stitch in time
Piece by piece, the American dream
The fabric puzzle piled under paper outlines like loose leaf reams
Fed the one-toothed industrial machine
those cut-up body parts —
a shoulder, a sleeve, a hip halter, a neck, a leg —
to complete a Frankenstein garment of dreams.
$1.25 for each assembled whole
Lastly, the shaky penciled script of “028”
Her worker number
To trace back any irregularities
(By chance she found her ID
Beneath the tag with a purple swan
On the rack in Macy’s
$398 suggested retail price)
The price she paid for the transatlantic journey took more than 35 years
They cut one by one the cords that kept them bound to the possibility of return
Just like the balloons of Oz
pappou’s gold rimmed tooth sunshine on hard boiled eggs
branches of olive trees and votsalakia
the tissue tablecloth clothes pinned near the sea
The mother looked to what she could gain in the glimmer ride of America
The daughter looked to what she had lost
The hot air of the dream fueled the drum of the driver of the machine
No matter that it mangled Baba’s mind, wore mama’s spinal column
(And still they come — by the boatloads bloated and bursting onto shores and factories Like rats.)
The hot air escaped subtly — fissssss
Now she is stuck.
Noosed to an empty balloon
Holding taut a wimpy line
Deflated.
In a place no one can pronounce her name
Squinting her eyes shut
Clicking her heels in a rembekiko strut
Repeating under her breath,
“There’s no place like home
There’s no place like home.”
One Comment