One of these days we’ll recreate it all—but just once—there’s too much greed in this world as is. We’ll go out to the field and climb trees with our bare feet—we won’t feel the cuts til the morning. We’ll find caterpillars on leaves and trap them in glass jars, and open it only when the cocoon cracks. When we’re hungry, we’ll chew on the wild fennel and pretend it’s licorice, then dip bread in olive oil and let it drip down our chin, thick and greasy. Then we’ll jump on our bikes, the simple ones, where we break on the backpedal. We’ll ride home and find your mother still healthy, and your father still strong. The heat will forgive, and we’ll live in wonder at how the colors of the sky ripen as the sun sinks. We’ll watch the silvery moon rise, and the ache of exhaustion will swell inside of us til we feel a heartbeat in our sore feet, our scraped fingertips. We’ll count the freckles that appeared on our skin in just a day’s time, and we’ll trip on our drowsy feet up to bed. We’ll unspool, dozing with our hands entangled, not as tiny as they once were—grass matted in the knots of our hair.
If we could do it again, for old times sake, I’d be on time. I’d meet you on the street corner right at the first telephone ring. It would be fit for a stage—oh, the theatrics we’d cause. We’d weep as the curtains close.