Untitled Poem

Untitled Poem

We were in the basement, in my dream, classifying the racial properties
of socks. It was dark and cold, but we went on, quietly, delicately,
nervously. It was only then, hands-deep in your silky pink undergarments
that I realized just how plain I am. My socks can be divided into only four
races: white no patches, white one patch, white two patches, and white
holey. But your socks … your socks are the freed prisms of diamonds;
or else they are tragic victims of a Frankensteinian tie-dye massacre:
but at least your socks—for all their pinks and blues and colours that
won’t even be discovered for another ten years—at least
your socks tell a story.

This pair, dyed golden and crimson in Oriental dyes, tells of a
harrowing escape aboard a midnight train from the Chinese sweatshop
and its curator—the eight-year-old boy who sings, while he works, of
the nights he spends alone in the cupboards of strangers. It whispers
to me about fleeing across the border, hidden away under the stolen
contraband of fake Rolex watches, and coming to a Wal-Mart near you.

Another pair reminds me of that French boutique we slipped into, after
Dark—the one that smelt like citrus and pagoda candles. They remind
Me of Monica, the black-haired Austrian who knitted her socks in the
backroom amid her sultry affairs with Lorenzo, the handsome man
who broke her heart not once, but seven times—and I was always
curious about what Austrian named a child Monica?

Sometimes, in my dreams, I wander in at night while you’re sleeping
and brush away the frail hair that sometimes hangs down on your face.
Sometimes you’re cold at night, when I see you in my dreams, sometimes
shivering, sometimes alone; sometimes with bed sheets cooler than the
settled foam of oceans as you lie submerged in a cold sweat,
sometimes dying. But when I see your eyes in my dream, they’re
always the same, they’re always Monica’s.

Sometimes I think about the young boy, who sleeps in the bedroom with
Us, huddled away in a cupboard (the only place he feels safe anymore).

Sometimes I think about your socks, and how they sparkle better than
diamonds.

Sometimes I dream about Lorenzo and Monica settling their own runaway
Sweat-labourer into his cupboard bed for the night.

And every time, it ends with me, in the laundry room and I realize
I’ll never know your story.