Abracadabra

by Eleanor Lerman

I have been in the woods
asleep under the winding wind
That was in the last century,
which had the taste of apples in its little breezes
but came to be riddled with technology
Thus, its years went on and on until they stopped

And this is also true:
someone reached out her arms to me in “the long ago,”
which I remember: it had a sound running through it—
something like jazz in the afternoon
And art was stacked in all the corridors:
little boxes of feathers and toy ballerinas
Little jewels, little gems that fell from the trees
Oh, the heart breaks. It always does

when someone reaches out from the long ago
Goodbye, goodbye then, all you darlings
Some days the sun breaks into golden rings
that chain us to the sky. But the moon breaks, too,
into the cold, clear slices of the future
that are always served up in the aftermath
So yes, that is what this must be: the other life,
the one you will wake up to from now on

No, it is not written, but someone always knows
Thus, abracadabra: is it really a surprise
that it turned out to be you?