Maybe

Maybe

by Rose Auslander


Maybe it was a morning like any other.
Maybe less rain, more flowers
in that color that feels like velvet, but
tastes like apricot and sounds like the ocean.

And maybe the buildings were clearer
than on most mornings — so clear
I could see the sky through them.

Maybe I’d somehow broken
the sound barrier, because
no one was talking,
no one was jackhammering,

And maybe it was quiet or
maybe someone was singing, had sung
the sun into getting a bath —
maybe it was that bright

And maybe someone was walking
from Brooklyn to Manhattan
across the water, and
fish were swimming backwards
all around her and

Maybe trees were growing
in the middle of the street
and words were dripping
from them, falling everywhere,
flowing into a river and pulling me
past the woman and her fish
all the way out to sea.


-refers from the word “rain” in Laressa Dickey’s poem 2, from Catalogue of Utilities