This one's for Egypt

After Spring

Your sister called them agents
when she saw the flag branded
on the steel-blue hull. You waited
through fog, through morning-

her artistic anger stewed
like years before when bitter cold
kept you inside with dad sequestered
and the poor woman unwanted by all
we could name except the coddled mutt
who broke her with a preference
for slight affection and its reluctant crown
rising between crests of irritation
and a cry for old solitude
fashionably recollected in that house
of trap doors and high ceilings
where whispering walls urged
blistering children in limited roles
to loathe the general and vaunt
lonely souls until over-exposure
cast them in harsh tones magnified
to degrees no hero could withstand
when they seared and the waves broke
to be felt all over those rooms
cold and whistling with winter drafts
Little man the warmth has a cost
we never lacked but Little man keep
a clenched fist for the memory
of days when it wasn’t so easy

but it never felt easy
when silence would summon
a ghost with its gavel
while she walked on shattering
shells with a grimace
recalling the moment
abroad in the autumn
his breakable knee when
she could have cried murder
and kept every future
from choosing the tunnel
where views of a gold street
illumined the targets
who caught all the excess
to aid our survival
each day in that fort
that was built like a prison
and how could we know,
the quiet believers,
that all of the windows
could double as mirrors
reflecting the judgments
in clever disguises as
you tried the feat
of escaping in pages
where words from a genius
brought tears and resentment
for all you imagined
kept hidden in corners
so jealously guarded
by dragons with faces
like neighbors and leaders
and every intention
just hammered and hammered
your delicate smile
until it was bitten
by years that had never
been lived by me either

And all that I’m good for
abroad in the summer
is squinting at schooners
that sail from the harbor
and nod through our silence
and heighten the wonder
of finding the angel
again in the ether

See that I’m here,
little sister
you know me-
when you want your own
you just have to ask me.