Newspoem 25 December 2006

The Voluntary Mourner

Into your eyes with the future then
will I burn a cupcake wrapper in an ashtray after
the look you give me pleads for your seriousness
I think we both know something neither knows
impaled on the bow of history, I see you
salt stings my eyes until I turn
I needed your disapproval perhaps
or I knew your project needed ghosts to manage it
after the mushroom cloud ate Chicago
and the handcuffs coiled with surprising speed
everything scripted, not just by the victors
I relax into these memories of the future
because the heroes will be erased
their ink smeared into false calligraphies
while in the basement the letterpress clanks
bent to the service of poetry
quietly, then, unfairly, unreasonably, I live
to carry your truth forward through the blistering lies
Pinochet is dead