by Roger W. Hecht
The ghosts of the future are walking among us,
Picking fruit in the produce aisle, honking annoyingly
the second the light turns green, haunting the back rows
of bookstores searching for forgotten words.
Or they haven’t yet arrived, burrowed
In a belly full of fluid, just a bubble becoming a solid.
Or they are halves not yet whole: two genetic threads
to be spewed out of some future ghosts’ bodies,
spilling then mingling then doubling, doubling, doubling.
Then the troubling torment that follows
the falling out into this world between those bookends:
birth, then death. It may come quickly. But let’s hope
it’s delayed, extended very far off into some distant time
So they’ll have good stories to tell.
Roger W. Hecht has poems forthcoming in Gargoyle and Redactions. His have appeared in Diagram, A-Minor, Puerto del Sol, and other journals. His chapbook, Witness Report, was recently issued by Finishing Line Press. He teaches literature and creative writing at SUNY Oneonta.
A-Minor 