Robert Bohm
TO FEDERICO FROM ONE OF THE DISAPPEARED
The sky did it. To me, companero.
The flagpole’s shadow, the python’s outstretched belly,
swelled with what youth didn’t know. You grew
your hair long but it hid nothing, least of all
you. The dead elm’s color: so like
the child’s face at dawn as the mother stared at it, sobbing.
Unaware, bugs walked toward the water
while the water walked toward the bugs.
Someone played piano.
The world was holy, almost. I once thought: should I
brand butterflies and herd them into corrals like cattle?
In the end, wearing too many faces while returning
from one of my walks by the Hudson, I tilted back my head:
the sky slashed my throat. I know, I know:
it wasn’t fair to leave you behind
to write the poetry.
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