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