March

March

You marched in

unranked, defile,

in exile from your childhood.

No fanfare, no flourish,

your arrival in

unassuming worn out Vans

silent and gradual and then suddenly.

Your exit was the same

and still you

marched.

To the beat of your own

eyes

(deepset, Hungarian,

wild and dark and

stereotypically tortured)

marched.

To the beat of your

grandfather’s nose

(which adorns your face with

generations of

broken sails

and bottomless boats)

marched.

To the day of your birth

March

to your forgotten fathers of your

mother’s

first, second, fifth loves

and to waiting too long

to

poem after poem you

pumped into your arms

to the poem on your

wrist.

And you marched on, still,

your destruction played in your shadows

I tried to keep up with you,

to catch you, to make friends with your secrets,

because I wanted to play in the shadows too.

This, and other poems can be found in my collection Catching Dusk With Our Teeth here.