On Being Absent for the Revolution

Spring Revolution back home,
—and I am here. Wrapped up and wilting
in fading daffodils, twilight-tripping and trillium-tied.
Back home, the padauk is blooming, her golden tresses
the kind of wealth that hope affords. Even this tree
is useful.
—But I am here,
nestled nicely in narcissus, rippled with redbuds,
shaking cherry blossoms from their boughs. Back home,
blood is water spilled from flesh. Flowers bloom
in the wake of the dead, but will they wake?
But I wake
—I wake here.
Spring outside my window, winter boughs sprouting green.
These balding cypress knees are nothing compared
to the knees of my people, their bodies thudding
with the glint and sear of metal through their heads.
Hail the victorious dead: and sand the roads.
Let the blood lead a little ways, then nowhere.
See, these roads can lead
—oh, nowhere.
The way home is closed. But spring is here,
on this unsalted earth. On this daisy dotted grass,
where dandelions still hold wishes for puckered lips.
No gunshots in the night here, no shards of glass
on my bedroom floor. No thunder of pots and pans
in the dead of night. My skin is clean, unstitched.
My conscience tainted, not my body. My scars
my own. No scars for home. My mother knows
where I am.
I am not with her, I am
—here.