The Dream of a Fire Engine

Kimiko Hahn (2012)

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.