ISSUE: Spring 2021
From here I can see the children
running across the long field
for no other reason
than
they are fast.
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What shall I pray for
today?
Wealth? Good looks?
Youth?
In my third life
I’m supposed to fall
into the ears
of a puma
and hold my hands
up inside
the caverns of its skull
to touch
the night songs
coming in.
Oh, second life!
You were not the best,
and still how
lucky I was
to have no given map
but a language
to ask
a sleeping animal
if its teeth ached
after the last hunt.