TO
Helen Knode
In the end I possess my birthplace and am possessed by its language.
All I have is the will to remember. Time revoked/fever dreams — I wake up reaching, afraid I’ll forget. Pictures keep the woman young.
L.A., fall 1958.
Newsprint: link the dots. Names, events — so brutal they beg to be connected. Years down — the story stays dispersed. The names are dead or too guilty to tell.
I’m old, afraid I’ll forget:
I killed innocent men.
I betrayed sacred oaths.
I reaped profit from horror.
Fever — that time burning. I want to go with the music — spin, fall with it.