He could play an axe like a harpsichord,
a cello, a fool.
He could safely carry water in a berry basket
but more often hides foxes there.
I’d eat any berry he’d pick.
And unfamiliar mushrooms, marginalia, shrapnel.
I want to make a baby but what I can’t help
are the fires I can’t put out.
I don’t want to go back to sleep;
for that to be my only talent.
You won’t see him in the mythical red.
He’ll have ocean eyes
and be wearing a surgeon’s mask.
A hypnotist’s pocket watch will be hidden
among his stethoscopes, clean white teeth,
and the accent of his ancestors
practicing with scalpels
on slave girls aboard the Mayflower.