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Mario Susko

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The Variables of Progression

I’ve slept through my death, but I saw
you, with my own eyes, kneel at the bottom
of the stairs, your index and middle finger
feeling my artery, your head, framed
by the light, shaking, a slow motion pendulum -

Was there enough time left for me
to wake up and leave the room,
so I could be found at that spot -
yet, what purpose would that serve
if I had only imagined you to prove
to myself I had dreamed of being asleep,
and would that mean that going back to look
at myself there I’d been alive nevertheless -

I could not say at the end, reminded
not once that I would, at first, remember
only what I did not remember, that the dream
was so life-like it had to step out of itself,
and I would be free, whether I died in it
or when I awoke, for the mortar shells,
in either case, could not have been dummies,
the latter death no doubt less memorable -

Still, one day I may sit at a sidewalk cafe,
deserted in late afternoon, watching myself
march by, one in the column of children
whose heads are shaved, bare feet covered
in mud, wooden rifles on our shoulders,
our drill learned by heart: Bang, lie down,
you’re dead, and finally perceive I had no dream
and, having been conceived by you, no life -

 

 


 

Page(s) 46

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