A Guided Tour of the Future
by Diane Reynolds


Welcome to the latest version of the future, where
all that has not happened is about to, where the newest souls
form in the branches nightly, beautifully curled
as rosebuds or cabbages, filling the dark with a sparkling perfume.
Here are the events you couldn't wait for
and those you dreaded, the ones you counted on
or bet against. The stock market has rallied, your hair returned,
the cat that went out in 1985 now sets up a virginal howl.
Everything is here, each star, each pinprick of light going out,
each new sun coming up, each cure for diseases long extinct
stacked in its coffin. The weather, perfect at last, is mild and interesting,
fitting and refitting itself to the newly invented seasons.
Everything is fresh here, unparalleled, each eye
rigid with astonishment, and yet prepared for more,
and more, the worst over, the best breaking over the horizon.






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