As I lie
on this mattress
staring at the ceiling
and the fields behind my eyes
I think of Anna Akhmatova
whose only chance
of preserving her poems
through the times
of persecution
was to memorize
each one
by heart.
As I lie awake
under these glaring lamps
I think of the outline of
my only body.
And I think of them
and how they don’t understand
that even if they drag
a thousand trembling bodies
to a place
where they cannot be seen
and leave them there for days
or for years
they will never learn
how to tame our ideas
or catch a glimpse
of my dreams.
And they truly imagine
that this way they can
“do something about us”
unaware
that the one thing about us
that is “a threat” for them
is the one thing
they cannot
capture.
As I lie on this mattress
I think of Howard Zinn
and how he writes
that they have the guns
and we have the poets
and therefore we
will win.
I think of the way
the years and people unfold
inside these walls
they pass
and change
and return
and nothing ever changes
and no penalty punishes
nor a room
where bright ones
and mad ones
and strange ones
and those who refuse to comply
are thrown for a while.
And when the years have passed
and they’ve finally grasped
that they can fill up
all their jails
with piles of our warm bones
and still we will not end
like the bodies we are
we just pass through our cells
like time
when they finally get it
we’re already far away
we’ve walked
all the way across
the bridges of faith
when they finally get it
where there once were these walls
there will be an open field
filled with beauty and bustle
like it always was
strange, breathing blossoms
rising from it
like they always were:
our ideas and prayers,
the lanky limbs of our dreams.
I can feel the air
dense and heavy with them
as I lie
in this gloomy room
forgotten by fear.