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Avalanche
how strange
I thought I was new here
--James Tate
In my last life I came back
as a mountain, which was punishment
for the life before
when I was plummeting snow.
I killed three hikers, so
I had to forge fresh emeralds
from bedrock
to bribe the gods. When I got out
I called my brother up in Indiana,
but he was nothing—just the space
between ears of corn. My mother was a highway
with narrow shoulders, who ran
close to the sea.
I knew a guy once
who died, and came back
as a planetary ring
somewhere in the space-boonies.
He’s still mostly dust.
And when he sends
letters home they just burn up
in the atmosphere; the fried remains
wind up on the mantles
of astronomers
who are all first-borns here,
and who go around naming
the night-fog after themselves,
saying, with wonder, how
small we all are. Now
I keep hoping that the light
won’t hurt as much
when I see it again
for the first time. When I’m human and young
again, and my knees ache all over
because they’re made
from that part of the universe
that hasn’t cooled off yet
from the first fires. And I hope
I won’t forget
how I thought I was new here
each time, and how wrong it was
I always turned out
to be.
Return to Volume 3.4
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