Amnesia/Amnesty

I knew a boy once, but he disappeared

one day he was white teethed smile biting

on half a stale bread, swimsuit and bare feet,

the next he was statistic, room tidied up

by a grieving mother, his obvious absence.

Once, looking at a school picture she wished

she had given him away. That was the pain

talking. She really wished for a body

to mourn, because him being alive was so…

that hope was like anti-freeze poisoning

killing so painfully, so slowly. Merciless.

Alone at night she could almost hear his knock at the door,

the lame excuse for being almost two year late for supper.

She wished, realistically speaking,

that a bullet had gotten to him

before the blunt knife to his scalp,

the ice axe to his kneecap,

the pliers to his healthy teeth.

Angrily, she cursed his image ­

­­­– the sepia toned portrait of a tanned boy

stepping on a decrepit soccer ball–

She had taught him to lie with a smile,

keep his head low, salute and shut up.

She taught him so well! She taught him

to kiss the flag when he wanted to burn it,

to praise the president, when he wished

to be the national revolution/traitor/martyr

She cursed his name, the name she chose

for him so carefully, so lovingly.

She wished he could have been mute

or even blind to the absence of people

living without fear. Once there was a boy

in that house, but he disappeared.

Fire

I prefer the fresh wind of an open window,

a quicker end, a body to put in the coffin.

I can remember what it felt like

when the fire was eating at me,

the smell of barbecue, the fear,

the scream stuck in my throat.

I remember the anguish, but the pain?

The pain is gone. The pain is a thing of the present.

Once I felt it, but not anymore.

It is my father’s eyes I think of

when I think of the pain, looking

at me in that picture. Was I five or four?

He knew I was something else

besides dolls and church and well behaved.

Now, the years having passed

I wish I could have put this fire down

before it consumed me, but I didn’t.

It was a harmless type of warmth and I

drank it like a good cup of java,

I liked the feeling of it warming my belly,

I liked the danger of it burning my thong.

I have learned (too late) that

fire is the enemy of our gender.

It burned us once in the bonfires

It burned us twice in factories

But it burns the strongest inside.

It burn as red as rage, as hot as passion,

relentless.

The brain is really a funny thing.

I remember the bows in my hair,

the pink dress, the smell of lavender

in my wrists,  the smell of

tobacco on your fingers,

but not much more.

The brain is a really funny thing.

I can still remember the fire, the fear,

The smell of frying meat,

but I really can’t remember how

or why

I let you burn me in your pyre.

It doesn’t really matter now.  The pain is gone.

I feel only the wind in my face,

the absence of your hands in my hands,

the freedom of forgetting.