Roy Jacobstein

If they're right, this mosquito dive-bombing my ear
into total presence at 3 a.m. is Rasputin, or your late 

Schnauzer or possibly (why not?) one of those spears 
of asparagus served at Cousin Dee's 83rd birthday 

luncheon last month, or even Cousin Dee herself, 
depending on karmic law and the minute particulars 

of the soul's transmigration (interval of dormancy,
if any, distance traversed in space and time, degree 

of ascent or descent on the biologic scale from mite 
to man, etc.), which means that among this newly

hatched crop of anophelines, who unimpeded live 
but a few days, and whose females alone bite, could be 

Shakespeare (spiraled down through the centuries) or 
the louse that once bit the arse of the unknown (to us) 

object of his affection in Sonnet 55, so on the chance
those who believe this sort of thing—a priori no less
 
nor more plausible than Red Seas parting or virgin
births or sun gods demanding sacrifice of human 

(preferably young and female) flesh—are right, 
I'll forbear from further attempts to squash what 

well may be Mohandas K. Gandhi, secure in knowing
should I come back as a cat I'll sleep soundly, curled 

upon myself on the soft couch while someone's 
cousin or mother or child circles overhead 

in her newfound brown body, shaking the last 
of her human tears from her glistening wings ...


Copyright © Roy Jacobstein All rights reserved

Marlboro Review, 1999 Marlboro Poetry Prize, Stephen Dunn, judge