GARY LEISING

Afterlife

You'll get out of one car, slide into another,
and when the road beneath it stops rolling away,
you'll know you're there.
At first light, the rooster tells the truth:
he crows whenever you want to wake up—his calling
advises the balloon that lifts the sun.
When you're dirty, it will rain,
the water any temperature you like.

In your small home—a fairy tale one,
once home to three bears or Red-Riding-Hood's grandmother—
you'll find a family of gray foxes.
They'll forage in the nearby woods for food,
and drop what they find in your picnic basket.
You'll spend days lying in flowerbeds,
only your face poking through the thick blanket of pansies,
where you wait for butterflies to land on your tongue.
Their flavors, matched to wing-colors,
delight you so. Until one day, twenty, maybe
thirty years later, you swallow a solid black one.
Its taste, a mix of licorice and blood,
makes you realize, finally, you're alone.