And What If

by Sarah Sarai

And what if
Lot’s wife and Orpheus and Eurydice

honor the contract. You don’t have to mime
those backward fables.

Remember, to make the span plausible note
“boundary” is a mere word, a propaganda.

The stop here is internalized.
Internalize a single-cell flame of butterfly blowback

(it’s a mutable world).
Clear of this beat is abounding sod, and to pine for,

apricot musk, a dandelion scatter signifying:
What’s to lose?

The ovule-into-seed sails on breezes obliging
elevation and release.

I’m here made linear to instruct you, Step over
and out and onward. Defy and

look back as process, not monolith.
The sod, its wobbly dandelion, one poet’s daffodils

of bright gold, another’s rose as sweet and, later,
hers for sacred Emily, line the way.

Now for a quick tale of caution.
“No straight road, issuing from it.” [John Ashbery]

[“Meaningful Love”]