Everyone needs a genie and a lamp.
Ancient red handprints in a hard-to-get-to cave.
A wireless charger for their liver
after years of heedless drinking.
Also, not to dematerialize before seeing Venice,
which itself may soon dematerialize
beneath the Adriatic. Upstairs, my brother
bangs the supper dishes. My wish
is to be too drunk to think
about the sermon at the funeral mass,
the priest mumbling no one knew what,
or the coffin fed into the back of the hearse
and driven off with another brother’s body
while his widow went to pieces on the curb.
According to the internet, there are three things
a genie can’t do: no granting the wish for more wishes.
No bringing back the dead. For that,
you’ve got religion. Also, no making someone fall
in love with you. Luckily there are potions,
even if they’re bad for your digestion. I wish
my friend had never been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
That we still lived together in that house
among the trees. I’d like to go there now
on a magically self-cleaning carpet
for when my dying cat throws up again,
and grieve.