by Barbara Ras

    But you can have the fig¹ tree and its fat leaves like clown hands

    gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger

    on your cheek， waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.

    You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look

    of the black dog， the look that says， If I could I would bite

    every sorrow until it fled， and when it is August，

    you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love，

    though often it will be mysterious， like the white foam²

    that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys

    until you realize foam's twin is blood.

    You can have the skin at the center between a man's legs，

    so solid， so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind，

    glowing occasionally in priestly vestments， never admitting pettiness，

    never stooping to bribe³ the sullen⁴ guard who'll tell you

    all roads narrow at the border.

    You can speak a foreign language， sometimes，

    and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave

    where your father wept openly. You can't bring back the dead，

    but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands

    as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful

    for makeup⁵， the way it kisses your face， half spice， half amnesia，grateful

    for Mozart， his many notes racing⁶ one another towards joy， for towels

    sucking up the drops on your clean skin， and for deeper thirsts，

    for passion fruit， for saliva⁷. You can have the dream，

    the dream of Egypt， the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand.

    You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed，

    at least for a while， you can have clouds and letters， the leaping

    of distances， and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise.

    You can't count on grace to pick you out of a crowd

    but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump，

    how to throw yourself over the bar， backwards⁸，

    until you learn about love， about sweet surrender，

    and here are periwinkles， buses that kneel， farms in the mind

    as real as Africa. And when adulthood⁹ fails you，

    you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond

    of your childhood， the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas

    your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept.

    There is the voice you can still summon at will， like your mother's，

    it will always whisper， you can't have it all，

    but there is this.

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