An American Dream

Americans love the unquestionably wealthy
Prop them up on tinder sticks
As examples of a dream
I’ve never dreamt.
Instead, I think of my mother
Rubbing two nickels
And a dime together
To make a beach
with soft waves
that lap at the shore.
Gulls, whose proper names
I’ll learn later, the laughing
and lesser and ring-billed,
circling
as she pulls a plum
from her bag
like a magician.
My father,
supine in the sun,
saying,
I wonder what the poor people
are doing?
then watching us,
my mother
a library book,
my brothers shovels
digging, digging, digging,
my sister swimming, and me
biting into the smooth flesh
of what was once a seed.