NEXT LIFE

I never understood
the interest in reincarnation, the desire
to undergo the world
any more than once.

Then I met you.

Listening to your voice
and the silences between your words,
watching your slender hand and wrist
as you brush a strand of hair from your face,
I realize that if returning meant
another chance of knowing you,
I would take it. I would endure
whatever pain and folly
the next life might entail—
the hatred of enemies, the indifference
of friends, the loss
of loved ones, the perpetual
accumulation of iniquities—
just to gaze once more
into the iridescence of your eyes
and touch, with a guiltlessness impossible now,
the pale perfection of your cheek,
the inviolable slope of your brow.

With you, the planet we would inherit,
no matter how despoiled
by generations of neglect and greed,
would seem to me fresh and new,
restored to wholeness
by the mere possibility
of your love.



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