Dream Ending in a Lover Burning My Mother's Wedding Gown

Abstract

Dream Ending in a Lover Burning My Mother's Wedding Gown torrin a. greathouse (bio) Dream Ending in a Lover Burning My Mother's Wedding Gown after Bradley Trumpfheller Not-quite-daughter. Skinned knee & crooked grin. Been taughtbetter than to front-porch my sadness like this. Given all the nails& plywood to build myself a closet & call it a ballgown. Right?Truth is, a house does all the haunting. Any ghost goes holeywhen the light slats in. Sunset glitzing the hardwood Chevy red.Bedrooms rattle—blown-out headlights. Every clock clatterslike stilettos on linoleum. What's a mother if not a second-handghost? A campfire we story? Powerline crow-gab & deer-rubgossip. I'm not the sorta girl made for white lace & forevering.The whipstitch kind of feminine. All baby's breath & bruise.Cumshot & taffeta. Toothrot. Glitter-spittle. Mother's hand-me-down white dress I couldn't have cleavered my way intoif I'd wanted. If I'd had the chance. But these shoulders, hips,& all their could-have-beens. In front of my mother's mirrorI'm sobbing. Mouth a bust zipper. My dream-lover slipsthe dress from my waist, strikes a match on the blue nowhereof my stubble, & we watch it burn. White. Black. White again.Milktooth. Gap tooth. Fresh sheet spilling off its ghost. [End Page 68] torrin a. greathouse torrin a. greathouse is a transgender cripple-punk MFA candidate at the University of Minnesota, and assistant editor of the Shallow Ends. She has received fellowships from Zoeglossia, the Effing Foundation, and the University of Arizona Poetry Center. Their work is published in Poetry, Ploughshares, and Kenyon Review. Her debut collection, Wound from the Mouth of a Wound, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions (2020). Copyright © 2020 Middlebury College Publications