After I died I was given three lives
Now must choose one:
A forest ranger I roam the Rockies
Cast my hand inside the moon’s shadow
Waters silver and cool
Drinking them like sipping life
My life as confectioner sweetens dawns
Imagining tortes provoke trances
Swirling milk ice like Alpine glaciers
Tastes so deep they mortify pain
For the third I design rocket cars
Set to soar on Earth and Mars
Faster than thoughts and quicker than my hopes
But can I make them race through water?
Now I must choose only one
Reminding me of the life I led
Sixteen hours work each day without sun
Fabricating coal tar into food bars
Joints slapping, skin stacked with sores
The short cots always cold
I was told
Work all my life and you will reach heaven
But even in heaven some are more equal
Their choices far greater than three
I cannot love this virtual life
When the living world screams
Into my over-designed dreams
Rather I’d work as a watching shadow
Trying to aid the fully alive
But will our gods let me ease their lives?
Perhaps they survive on the toil of the living
I must ask – why keep heaven if you can’t help hell?