And there was given to it a mouth with which to speak
great things and blasphemies.  And there was given
to it, too, authority, and hierarchy, and
men and women worshipping.

This was the dream of that winter during which
I was told I might need to leave the world
with my son and husband in it.
I might have pictured

a cruise ship dragging emptiness over the Atlantic.
A cloud passing over it carrying a million minutes.

Cool slices of time set down before a man I’d never met.
And the woman I would never be.
Behind me, the indescribable.  Such beauty.  Ahead of me
memory—

That door to the enchanted village with
its bird-bearing trees.  Seed
tossed into the future around which everything

is formed
eventually, whether
or not you’re there to see it.

That beast, that
time-and-space machine.

Laura Kasischke has published eight collections of poetry and eight novels.  Her most recent collection, SPACE, IN CHAINS (Copper Canyon 2011) received the National Book Critics Circle Award.  She lives in Chelsea, Michigan, with her husband and son and teaches at the University of Michigan.