PROPHECY
Danielle Blau
It will end up too good to be true
or too bad—that’s all I can tell you
for sure. And count yourself
among the fair; a small certainty’s
a rare blessing.
AND BEHOLD:
You will wake, fat as the land
and you will breathe worlds into being. Like stars,
like fish. What bliss, to be so big
your window’s smaller than your eye,
your curtains spilling open like pink gills. What bliss,
to gaze down on your bed and find you’re sleeping still
still, drowning in your nostrils’ swirling steam...
THIS IS A DREAM:
So crieth the squab-faced man, “All is false!”
His glabrous lips shine, shimmy lewdly, “All is false
not least of which, this obscene proclamation!” Oh, what dread
to see his tongue gloat, bask fatly in the sun.
What dread, to feel yours shrivel into dust...
FROM HERE, WHERE TO:
There you have the two ways it could be.
What comfort and what calm, to plainly see.
Of course, as ever, if you prefer the door
you’re halfway there, just countless halfways more.
TO WRAP UP:
Out here it’s the same—
vast, blustery, gray.