ANABASIS

The marionette-faced man drops his jaw,
and begins to read,  His voice is gravelly, deep
He is hesitant. His face, as much as his poem, is his story.
From time to time he glances up, pages gently trembling
his eyes blue pools in which a past self swims
He speaks, but in music;  he back-and-forths you
like a hammock on a cloudless afternoon.

He smiles but not with his eyes, and as you listen,
he devolves;  the lines in his face diminish;  his hair re-hues;
ruddy cheeks reveal a young boy swinging giddily
on a tire come Spring .
He’s more comfortable now, settles into his words
like a sweet sheet billowing onto a bare bed;
Reaching the conclusion, his low voice trails
and then, silence.
He looks up, expectant, as though in apology.
He wants to have read well.
The marionette-faced man lays down his papers
and awaits judgment from flourescent-lit faces;
and murmuring begins.

Returning home, I find the sleeping baby
flung Christlike, all in white, and lie down beside her
thinking of the man who was the boy, who is us all
Hurled hollering into the world -- ever after,
flailing for redemption, learning, with time ,
to contain some of it on paper, to submit it soberly,
without fuss, for this world, or any other,
to sentence.

c Julianza Shavin circa 2003