If I could, I would reverse-engineer
your cells, make them grow younger
until you were my babe. I would blow
your body into a haven for hookah pipes and pink smoke,
give you a room without judgment
on the judgment day.
I would turn the tumors in your belly
into the small vase of roses and the mint tea
we held in glass cups in Paris
when it snowed.
I would take the lock of hair you left
in the double tooth comb and crush
it between my teeth. If I could, I would invent
the word for the way light
vibrated inside me when I lit
ten candles for you in Santa Maria Novella.
I would blow your mind
with Rachmaninoff.
If I could, I would microscope the brittle ridges and tender folds
of your single split fingernail,
the one you clicked with your thumb in appointments
with doctors that became shorter and shorter
as days of the year. I would remove the doctors
and add the priest sooner, the one who marched up Bush Street,
cassocks flowing, into our small flat, because he let you cry.
I would go back to the morning after
your brother’s funeral
when the pine tree in the yard
grew wild out of your radiant hair
as you sat on the patio
cigarette and coffee in hand,

and I would tell you, I will be fine.
I would take away my father’s bruise
beneath your blue eye but not the night
that put it there.
If I could, I would put us in the red booth
at Bob’s Big Boy the night I came
home from college with my first
busted heart,
the bad coffee in the endless cup,
your Satellite Sebring in the lot,
ready to take us home.