yet you speak to me
in clumsy italian
& this puzzles me
as black smoke
slowly suffocates us
through defected
gas masks –
i hold your hand
as we fall through
crevasses in the
dry ground
& onto a boat in the
mediterranean/
the air is clean here,
your asthma will
not bother you
you tied a blue
bandana to my
forehead, laughing
at my long face
& pointing out my
small ears
you are such a
silly boy, andrius!
you call my name
in lithuanian,
reminding me that
it means warrior /
i’m not a warrior
but i’d gladly fight
if you were in danger
because i care about you
& you just stared at
me and then you
turned away with a
frown
i notice we are in a
new place, you calling it
home –
& i ask you where
home is and you
just giggle saying
where one starts from
as if you were
eliot himself
you wore my
sandles down the
beach in your sunday
dress with your hat
& i was not ashamed
to be with you with
my pants legs rolled
like the elderly men
who stroll the shore
checking their
crab traps
you told me to
close my eyes
for just a moment
& then we were in
the old house you
grew up in.
your babushka sat there
in her rocker
telling us of the war and
her byelorussian childhood –
we are partisans
who have shot at
german soldiers
said the sign
that hung about the
body of her brother
in that grim image
she tried to forget
i fear for our lives, andrius,
as if we are in danger
here among the olive trees
& you sit trying to
convince me that rasputin
was a holy man/
your father puts those lies
into your head.
ask babushka,
he was an evil man
but you turn away,
disinterested in my
opinions on the past
you seem so innocent
as you sit on the grass
& weave flower crowns/
lidyja,
do you remember when
we were young?
i awake to the sound
of a ceiling fan
& you aren’t there
C.D.S. 2 September 2010
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