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by the stroke of midnight

the door won't close in summer --

swelling like a woman

caught in the noose of heredity.

if time travel becomes reality

fill your lungs with air --

and be prepared to hold it for a million years:

we are all of us alone.

that year it was so dry the turtles

became refugees on the move.

Wait by the waterhole -- they will come.

if time travel were a possibility

we wouldn't have to be here --

we could invent new modes of life before

they coin the term.

A woman coils around the bedpost

Beckoning, with pallid arm, the skeleton abed;

"Get up," she says,

"Or I'll make the dead dance."

Time travel a reality

I yawn her grey hair black,

blunt white teeth,

forged on the anvil of heredity,

give me a warm smile.

Time to get up

But someday we won't have to.

Then we'll sit back, think about

what we really want to do with our lives.

And when time travel is affordable

We'll visit those places,

We'll have time to remember we

want to go.