Regrets  

If you were to change the clock

as we do in the fall, when we move

the clock’s hand back,

would you steer through yourself

by the heavenly map of your ancestors,

past grandmothers and grandfathers,

who with advice and warnings

indicate the navigational path,

along which sail your descendants

under the flag “who flies high,

falls low”—

in greater and greater numbers.

Or would you rather let go of the angel’s

elbow and jump,

jump.