In Your Next Life

•

May powdered milk
pool in the hollows of your dreams.
May you wake
remembering chocolate.
Bananas. Strawberries.
May you swallow your shadow.

In your next life
may you stir water into pancake mix
and call it dinner.
Wash your hair with thin slivers of soap.
Make your children wait in the back seat
so they won’t beg for Cheerios.

When you must choose
which things to lift out of your cart
and give back to the checker,
may someone in the line behind you
look at you
the way you’re looking at me now.