Drought

by Diane Lee Moomey

You could, fed up
with red and blue flashing lights
and sickened by the siren howls
of human misery that never stop, could
slip through any window and follow
the thread back to Narnia.

You could
backtrack your own trail
and know that, had you turned north
in 1981 instead of west, she might
have said “yes” and you might now
be sitting in a different chair.

Or not.
Or you could, reflecting upon lawns
and empty lakes and on the vanishings
of certain birds, either slide into a glass
with ice, or, ranting, take to the streets
and by now, both those roads will lead
to the same place.

It’s been such a long drought. So many
things were never born.