skipped reincarnation

when i come back i really really 
do not want to be a bird.
i know this contradicts popular opinion
but i do not think i can handle
seeing everything from so high up.
looking down on the bomb place
& the turtle graveyard. on the war
machine & the smoke. let me stay
down here where our lives can be
swallowed like hard candies.
a honey drop in the sugar street. 
if i am called on to be a bird
i think i will not show up. i will 
hang out where the ghosts do & instead
haunt whatever family member 
i have left. i will wait in their closet
& whisper to them that they should
build a house in the wilderness
& never ever come down. that they should
go back to where we're from
& hold the land like it once held us.
they will ask, "where are we from?"
i will explain that this will require
a knife & a boat. ears in the andes. 
fingers in by the big river. tongue by
the mediterranean sea. they will of course
not listen to me. the next life will knock
at my spirit but i will not come. i think
i have been a bird before & i cannot handle
becoming one again. leave me where
the dirt talks easy. i would prefer to return
as a pill bug. i am certain i have never
been a bug before. i would welcome
the close-up. a mouth made for 
turning death into stories. the mushrooms,
all of them with my name in their gills.