I Imagine the Gods.
I imagine the gods saying--
I imagine the gods saying we will make it up to you.
We will give you three wishes.
Let me see the squirrels again, I tell them.
Let me eat some of the great hog, stuffed and roasted
on its giant spit, and put out steaming
into the winter of my neighborhood
when I was usually too broke to afford even the hundred grams
I ate so happily walking up the cobbles,
past the street of the moon, and the street of the birdcage
makers, the street of silence, and the street
of the little pissing.
We can give you wisdom, they say in their rich voices.
Let me at least--
let me go at last to Hugette, I say.
The Algerian student with her huge eyes,
who timidly invited me to her room when
I was too young and bewildered that first year in Paris.
Let me at least fail at my life.
Think, they say patiently.
We could make you famous again.
Let me fall in love one last time, I beg them.
Teach me mortality, frighten me into the present,
help me to find the heft of these days
that the nights will be full enough and my heart feral.