In my other life

  I leap through leaf laden boughs, dancing

  and diving over rushing waters, rivers,

  under dappled light, high rooved woods,

  wind rippling the feathers of my wings.

  There is a temple, in my other life,

  where friends gather: stone pillars,

  a sword, the reverential tilt of a head.

  We gather, we fly,

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  we glory in the beating

  of wings.

  In this life I wake and keep

  my eyes closed. I pull

  close the blanket, tuck

  myself against the cold.

  Sirens wail. Or they did

  when heat threatened and

  we hid in bunkers, sweat

  pouring down dusty faces.

  In this life my sister asks,

  “are we doing the dying?”

  and my father turns his head

  towards me and hides what

  I shouldn’t have recognized

  as fear. Friends from Dresden

  hold hands with me, in dreams,

  and as we open the bunker door

  I see wings overhead, wings of metal

  and stripes, not feathers, and feel

  heat on my cheeks, and hands I held

  in dreams sink deeper into the black

  asphalt of roads, knees and feet all

  stuck, burning, smoking; their eyes

  fixing me—the heat, acrid in my nostrils;

  the smell, dry and hateful, fills my lungs—

  I long for tall trees, falling leaves, dew

  and cold stone, the rustling of feathers,

  the smile and dance of my

  little sister, her laugh clean

  and clear as the river

  of my other life.