belief

         we talked of the future idly,
cracking watermelon seeds between

         our teeth as we flipped through
crumpled pages to get to the sunday

         comics. believe it or not 
was one of those things we fully

         believed: like magic, like layers
of brass or copper rings that stretched

         the necks of women as they went 
about their tasks in the fields; 

         or how, after water vaporized 
inside faults during earthquakes, 

        it turned into gold. believe it 
or not, we still live in an age 

        of alchemy. A conveyor belt runs over
sixty miles in the Sahara desert, 

        & you can even see it from space. 
in the absence of box frames, bees 

        have been known to build heart-
shaped hives. now that the future

        is here, why is it so much harder
to stick out an open palm & believe

        that whatever falls into it is a whole
unto itself, little world without flaw?