Hell and Back

Late in the afternoon, as I walk

past parked cars on the way to dinner,

the golden reflections of adjacent buildings

slide like bubbles up over the dark glass of windshields,

and I think of how I am, we all are,

bodies lodged in some kind of stream.

Over sushi we discuss our funerals.

Someone already has theirs planned out,

though it’s more of a prank, hardly possible.

What troubles me more is how to feel.

To feel is just on the other side of mystery.

There is no walking there,

though I am always trying to walk there —

rain and bow, oil and moon

continuing across evening indigo.

Aaron Capelli is a graduate student at the university of chicago studying creative writing