*A work of ten parts originally
4. In the future I conceive
for myself, I wake mornings
to hear the chatter of early birds
and the nurturing soil grow
tomatoes and strawberries
in the garden out back. The breeze
knows me by name, sings the syllables
above watermelon patches and orange
trees. I sit on a porch I own and survey
what I have grown. I look at my hands
in that dewy dawn and find them ageless.
5. She’s here with me
and there with you
except my copy looks
nothing like the her I remember.
Maybe our editions got switched?
This version has her smile,
the mole along her neck,
even that mark on her knee
from when she tripped
along the sidewalk
and cried in 6th grade.
But this version is tall
taller than me,
her cheek trimmed
of baby fat,
her voice dropped in a valley
deep in her chest,
never to be recovered.
She is that unfamiliar stranger.
And yet you have her,
tiny hands, smallish feet,
bright brown eyes and lips
that trip over the alphabet.
Has she learned how to swim
yet, has she said your name
correctly yet?
How fast the world ages.
Of course, you hold her
as she was, and I bear her
as she is, and there’s no traveling
backward, no set destination
between the clicks of the clock’s
minute hand, like there’s no song
without air in your lungs,
no path to walk across the Atlantic,
no way to look in the bathroom
mirror and enter through the glass.
There is only the here
the now, the reflection on this side.
The Written State 