Peter Mladinic
My desire for there to be an afterlife
equals my conviction there isn’t one,
sing as one may, alone or in unison,
“When we all get to heaven.”
A heaven less screwed up than earth
where we long, and love and hurt.
An eternal present from which we look
down at the past; everyone has one
and everyone’s isn’t exactly alike.
Mine has a river, houses with chimneys.
A river I knew, and in the houses people
I knew well enough to know what brand
of cigarettes each smoked. Camel,
Lucky Strike, Raleigh, Chesterfield. Pall
Mall in a red package comes to mind,
a time before filters. My past, the States,
Kent’s Micronite filter hit its stride shortly
before the Nixon-Kennedy debate.
My past has a river, the Hackensack,
a president Dwight D. Eisenhower,
houses with chimneys, behind windows
and doors, smokers, each coupled
with another and divorce unheard of.
I knew Mr. Z’s Camel’s, his wife’s Raleigh’s,
her father’s Pall Malls. The click a sliver
lighter made when the lid flipped down
and breath drew in smoke. Is there
breath in the afterlife, are there doors,
and rivers, as there were where I loved
and hurt? Hard to envision. Maybe it all
happens again: the milk box, the stoop,
Mr. R’s watch chain’s arc across his vest,
who came from the Old County, took
a Pall Mall from the pack. His Zippo’s
click I hear in memory. I hate someday
I won’t; I wish I believed differently.
My most recent book of poems, House Sitting, is available from Anxiety Press. An animal rights advocate, I live in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.
