it seemed to me
i was a constellation
up high in summer minnesota sky at night,
i thought i was a jewish mother
singing her child in mame loshen a little mournful lullaby
i told myself i was red currant,
inviting strictly to acquired taste
i felt once
like i was a diamond,
i couldn't let it go to waste
the darkness setting in on the midwest silent corn fields
the stillness hiding in the maize,
ice crystals on the greenery
by morning vanishing as haze
the rooftops touched by sunrise
on morningside
it's not the place we met
under the lamp post
the rhinestones on the skin
in fact are drops of sweat
the names, the faces, the things you're striving to forget
let them go up in smoke
of stranger's cigarette
the colder side of bed,
the monsters underneath,
an apparition levitating and watching how you breathe
the movements of your hands,
an empty space inside your chest
not that i tried
but you were someone
i never could possess
i let you live and prayed it's for the best
some say i was judas
with good intentions
paving the road to hell
a person with the mission
oh god, i did it well
i saw myself as one of the black bodies
swinging in the southern breeze,
indeed i was one of the many
hung on the poplar trees
before that i was proud, strong and wise,
my skin had a chestnut undertone,
my hair was long and sleek
and had crow's feathers in it,
overnight my tribe was gone
during the forties
i made a way out of a red brick chimney
silently whispering kaddish
then for some time i was a traveling blue whale
in deep wet solitude,
alone among the fish
do i have many faces ?
no,
though i did believe i had a heart,
until you came
and showed i was nobody
right
from the very start
- май 2016