Your Daddy rents Dream Master from Jerry’s Video.

Disembodied eyes within a rainbow on the box, flames,

Freddy’s orange torso where heads of his dead teens

are stuck under flesh.

Thirty-six years later, I take a train to Queens

to see the torso in the flesh on display at MoMI,

along with his sweater shredded, and his glove of blades.

On wood-paneled walls of your sister’s room, hang

ceramic masks of red lips, painted lashes, ribbons draped

from temples. I go to her closet, slip on her peach prom dress

over my little league T. I kneel in front as you smear

Cosmic Pink on my lips. Spray perfume on the back of my neck.

In Jerry’s Video, a teen asks her friend has she seen

The Color Purple. Sure, she says, I’ve seen

the color purple, turquoise, hot pink… I dream a beach

of palms, bottle of Hawaiian Tropic on a turquoise towel

with hunky Dan. He may have been my first crush. I think

I was afraid to think that way then about his ass in tight, faded jeans.

We try to save our friends, but we’re stuck in loop, driving

a red truck in circles. Your Daddy’s truck of dead deer,

their black eyes taking me in. Your Daddy and you don’t make fun

of me wearing a dress. Here, I feel I can dream some place safe.

We run the yard. You aim a BB gun to the sky. I walk through

the quiet off-day at MoMI, past Henson puppets behind glass—

latex, painted eyes, ribbons—a doozy of things to be ingrained.

A year ago, I find out that you got sick and died. I will go back to the sun

setting over where you once lived. House gone. Dollar General

near the piece of rambling land we ran. Jerry’s Video torn down.

I could try to destroy monsters with nun chucks as Dramarama plays.

I think of walls collapsing into dirt as the 80s monsters keep coming back

here, in this country, and in my dreams. The ache of some place safe.