and we’re living and living and living again and

though i was never religious / in the right way, / she brought me to church /

and i made the lights flicker.

afterwards, i held her / face,

motherly cupping cheeks

& trust whispered through me:

why are we expected to resurface beautiful? who decided

water meant rebirth, what / sick motherfucker took anger by the shoulders

and shoved it under water turned hazy / from struggle. / which minerals will turn me

sane? Is it salt water? pool water? / or is it some stretch / to baptism, with priest white-clothed

and soaked, expecting trust from babies and wives who never / went to church. / My baptism wasn’t my rebirth / but my first chance. lakeside sobbing summer 2007 / was my second.

hair mixed with sink drain / was my eighth and now i’ve outdone / the cats.

this / is my last life:

two women come into work / and say “we have a strange / request” and i

say shoot / and they go / “a friend of ours lives in virginia / and got black lung from

a miner childhood; / only has a month to live and-” / and? / “she wants

your whole belly clams.” / my coworker and i exchange / heartbreak / he goes:

“we’ll give them to you raw / ice them good, you got a bag? / and the younger

of the two runs / out to her car. / i’ll package / some cornmeal / i say and the kitchen

becomes operation Last Meal. they leave / crying and i wonder / if it’s even true.

there are so many / conversations i should’ve recorded. there are jokes / i could’ve reused.

i wish she came to work with me / sat by my side smelling / seafood and responsibility. but i made my body into a pinball machine / for a year and learned / to envy each fail / i lost starts

of poems to / pins on a wall; / she has pieces / fragmented against / her bed frame, underneath

the springs i hid / fractions of myself-- / my past selves. yes

I have memories — but nothing

memorized. what sort of sickness

does it take to make a man eat another?

how cold until

this body freezes

completely? detectives must make a lot. my coworker and i

dissect our regulars; a man teaches me dali like

i don’t already know / and i let him. i take surrealism at 8pm / i skip

on the controversies to make a stranger / smile. a few selves ago / i would’ve

told him off / you know, he wanted to fuck hitler, had / all sorts of refrences / in his art

and missed out / on a ten dollar tip. and on particularly slow days

my coworker tells me stories / about prison / about

driving school buses / about things / he’s rebirthed with cooking. and i

see his puzzle is half undone. / “i only yell when / customers mess with my children,” he says

and when they ask / is he your father? / i think maybe

if babushka married a different man

if i went home in a different shopping cart

if we could just be, just be taste of / greasy seafood and pavement

if i didn’t put my last body in the compost,

if we met before our own respective

rebirths.

By Jude Ehmka

Visual by Kari Trail