Anne Kennedy

When we arrive at the lounge of everything with our bags handfuls of earth     the lives of our grandparents in our memory devices we expect an exchange of sorts     that is what we expect and I think everyone deep down expects that we will not turn back Through a high window we will connect stars like line drawings translate the sparkles of the poet we will sign the fascinating mouth of the speaker we will sing lyrics that someone thought were pretty good we will sing them and we will not turn back     we will not When our footsteps awaken fresh from a long complicated journey during which the planet slid otherwise we will likely remember a dream we had once and tell a version of it to the next person and the next and realize hopefully they also have a dream to tell and we will not do that thing where we won’t listen to anyone else’s dream we will listen and interpret     signing     singing     saying even though we have been instructed not to use ings we will use the wisdom disseminated by our devices we will not turn back we will not If on arrival there is wringing of hands we will shake hands and in the eye of a storm we will make tea with our brilliant fading bodies we will do a variety of things while we can we will bed down on the steps of the assembly if we have to we will bed down in a court of law and all beds anyway are temporary and when we see that and realize we have traveled through the night we have traveled and are not turning back     that will be the point at which we will arrive