what if you are Betty and Barney Hill
what if you said you did see the lights
and got home 2 hours late
dazed and convinced
bathing the experience from your skin
what if you heard the coffin bell ring
who would you tell
would they dig up the dead in time
to save a life or would they say
you were just hearing things
what if you saw your mother
years after she died
walking down the hallway
holding out her arms to you
crying and hours later
got the call that your brother
had been shot in a sleazy bar
downtown an unlucky bystander
to someone else’s argument
and your brother finally sober a whole year
what if you knew how to talk to trees
all the different dialects
the range of timbres the saplings
in higher registers
the deep richness of the elderly
what if you could stop a genocide
unburn the books keep the glass
from shattering in the synagogues
turn the yellow stars
into flowers in the gardens
what of you knew the secrets
of the human brain
how would you prove
that only the body dies
that the spirit goes on living
how would you turn
the secrets of the universe
into birds religion into dust
hymns into the arms
of a grandmother
