Suppose
everything is OK. There really is
nothing to worry about. Days go by,
a trainload of marshmallows.
You have no problems;
the sky is clear as vodka.
The rain doesn’t fall, but the oleanders,
the magnolias, the insistent camellias
keep right on blooming.
Winter is banished.
Spring starts over again,
pushing its way out of the earth,
each and every dawn, like a beautiful corpse
that really can rise again.
Your lover is faithful now,
brings champagne every afternoon.
Each evening, under the unchanging stars,
the sex is so good that, even when you try,
you can’t stop coming.
There is no death,
no aging. You stay just as you are.
And if anything bothers you,
it is only the slightest twinge.
You can’t even feel it, as you stare out
across that ever-blue horizon, where the future
goes on and on and on, looking
exactly like today.
Seattle Review
