Peter Milne Greiner
Impact Crater
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What if I take all the ages
What if I take all the shapes What if I love a gulf What if I kick up dust What if I’m dust What if I’m dinosaurs What if I’m the passage of time, too slow What if I’m starting to feel like a fourth wall here What if I’m love and I don’t exist What if I’m the conventions according to which you bury me when I die What if I’m a straight line that can’t exist in nature What if I’m nature What if I’m a little circle that could What if I’m a big circle What if I’m deep and or shallow What if I’m secrets buried just beneath the surface What if I’m visible from space for the next four point one billion years What if I’m visible from land for longer What if I’m lights in the sky and noises in the earth What if I’m the rainforest that obscures Maya What if I’m bigger than Switzerland in Nevada What if I’m the desolation and grandeur of very remote places What if I’m teepee What if I’m wigwam What if I’m anything but considered so roughly only in some circles What if I’m just getting started What if what I am is yet to come What if I become thousands of different kinds of marine life over night What if I go extinct almost completely but not quite several times What if I’m everything dying forever What if I’m what things mean What if I’m a celestial cycle sprawled inscrutably across the vastness What if I’m every whale gene What if I’m every volcano What if I’m what it’s possible to live with and through What if I’m ash in the sky, ash on the stairs, ash in the attic, ash under the bed What if I’m water and I come up through a geyser What if I’m permafrost, if I’m filled with dead mammoths, if I’m all the dead mammoths, if I’m extinct but intact What if I’m cloned and I roam again What if I’m an ancient dark forgotten evil What if what is inside me could kill me dead What if I’m the paths diverging What if I’m the floodplain, the riparian buffer zone, the accropodes, the spillways What if I’m what the blue bird augured and where the red fern went What if I’m the screeds, the screeds, the email, the email, the broken tablet, the mouldering heaths of papyri What if I’m the dead ends, the false starts, the scourges What if I’m every unknown thing What if I’m the stone that the sword’s in or the sword that the stone’s in What if I’m the militia, the mixed inscriptions, the long labyrinth, the short runway, the hollow earth, the feast of plenty, the larch wand, the war machine, the decay rate of rage, the day rate of the page boy What if I’m a mistake that’s getting bigger and bigger every second but never made What if I’m the primordial ocean but I screw it up somehow What if I’m lightning crashing What if I’m on the beach and live at the Acropolis What if I’m the secrets of stone henge revealed What if I’m impossible backwards movement across time What if I’m Robin Hood’s barn, Captain Kirk’s dick, ABBA’s Gold, Cartman’s mom What if I’m the snake charmed, the barrel ridden, the flint knapped, the love supreme, the continent lost, the proof burdened, the eye in the apple, the shock in the shell, the time in the capsule What if I’m before Christ, before breakfast, after Babel, after dinner, after Buffy, before life, after the goldrush, during sex What if under the sea I’m one league of many What if I’m the castle, the bathtub, the anthill, the copper cylinder, the customs house, the naturalist’s notebook, Victor Frankenstein’s lab, the monster, the bride, the son, the dawn, the day, the diary What if I’m no one watching What if I’m nothing else out there What if I’m the colors of the wind and the b-sides of innocence What if I’m Hobbes What if I’m Artex What if I’m Toto What if I’m Cujo What if I’m young everyone and late everything What if I am what is known as statistics What if I’m endemic to this planet What if when I emerge I emerge as an esoteric flu like slow loris flu, or as an elusive property of matter or time or light, or a fjord, or a dis, or Dis, or El Dorado, or Atlantis millennia ago or Atlantis right now or Plato’s Cave or The Clan of the Cave Bear What if when I emerge I’m the temperature at which books are forgettable What if when I emerge I emerge as the exact cosmic ray that mutates the gene that makes it so some people in the future are extra-resistant to certain diseases in zero-gravity environments What if I’m the great silence, the whole earth, dry land, open water What if I’m all the ice and I recede and recede and I recede until I’m just an iceberg, an ice cube What if I’m an ice cube What I’m gone forever What if I’m return |
PETER MILNE GREINER is the author of Executive Producer Chris Carter (The Operating System 2014). His poetry and science fiction has appeared in Fence, Motherboard, SciArt in America, Dark Mountain, Forklift,Ohio, Tagvverk, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn and works at a hotel.
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