it might have been that once upon a time,
between lives,
I grew long fingers like icicles,
as a piano player,
I strolled along like the whisper of an old wind
playfully stealing the flat notes
from a young girl’s sighs

as if at once all the church bells sounded fair,
like a fair Sunday
and the sky was pale like swathes of wheat
ripped down by rain

it might have been that between lives
my eyelashes grew
wistfully,
and the soles of my feet, thin like italic letters
carried me far away, over the ice