How to Build a Time Machine
by Ally Feisel
Remember when you were five.
Your mom baked her apple crumble,
and you told her you were going to sleep
in the cinnamon warm kitchen for the rest of your life.
Draw on your arm in ballpoint pen,
stems circling your wrist that
bloom at the crook of your elbow.
Go back to your middle school record store,
crumbling graffiti and purple velvet walls.
Wander to the Joni Mitchell record
you always wanted but could never afford.
Sit at your window until it snows,
and walk outside so the snowflakes get caught
in your hair, on your tongue.
Maybe even press a bare palm to the icicle
hanging from your garage.
When it’s late and sleep won’t come,
drive to the twenty-four hour grocery store
ten minutes from your house.
Stand in the freezer aisle under the fluorescent lights
that make you look more ill than you are,
and stare at the popsicles you haven’t had
since the summer you were thirteen.