Traveling Time

would have never gone to another city

would have never caught the moth

and named her Sofia

would have never made milk on my own

would have never filed my teeth for you

you liked these little circular nubs

the better to suck you with my dear

I would have sat in an open field

with my body a new white loaf of bread

I would have gone up to the body

Dorothy, what happens next?

Oh, that’s easy. We become violent.

when I get to heaven what time will it be?

would have never struck you in the face

all of those times. would  never have

made you buy me books that bruised you

when I thought you loved another girl.

would never have built cities of glass

with all the glass I had smashed

somewhere in another universe

           you said every possibility is occurring

           all the time all at once somewhere

           all the mirroring worlds all the milk

           spilled and caught and swallowed

           and smoothed across the face of the moon.

would have never desired brass

or strings or Sisyphus. it is all tiring.

a man who plays music with his mouth:

     it’s a scam.

would never have cupped my hands

in the spring of summer, or knelt at the sea

where my ancestors were born while thinking

of all the other waters.

would never have been with two hands

when I have so much suffering to do.

to stroke and be stroked and to build castles

requires an anatomy that is beyond all of this—

it’s simple. we’re so simple.

I would have never been so simple.

I would have been Marosa

with her feet up at the bench of god,

swatting flies. I would have.