No, I won’t die.
I can’t!
I have no loved one’s palms
to lay down
my life’s trophies
—poems, errors, soufflés—
before returning
my borrowed breath
to God.
Condemned to earthly eternity
I will thus go on and on,
unless He picks me up
in a chariot of fire
like Elijah
and I get to be loved
—at the eleventh hour—
by the whirlwind.
Youlika K. Masry
(March 8, 2004)