Wish List

To be the Mary J. Blige of poetry     to come back as Peter O’Toole     to have Peter Falk

expose his tender heart to you     as John Cassavetes would     make a monument to love

of a fragile wife     with a nervous tic    and strangers from a bar on the couch     to be a poet

of the sea      pounding down each syllable     ‘til it resembles almost nothing      but sound

between lovers     to be an unscripted scene of oneself     have a teardrop tattoo

inked beneath one eye     to practice right action and right speech     to summon a stiff drink

upon waking     at the foot of a dune     to be a grain of sand in that dune    to be seen

up close     at maximum magnification     as intricate and entirely plausible