A little boy and little girl stood
Quietly to the curb sweeping
At flowers that never really
Swept back. They gathered them gingerly
Like newborn saplings. Petals,
I may add, wilting ever
So steadily on cement floors. Blown
Off branches by wind and
Made to dance on thorny ground. They
Remind me of us. Flowers one,
All wilting on the cold hard
Earth. Fallen petals from home.
From home. Swaying each and every
One. Like little boys and
Little girls plodding hand in hand
In unison.

you were a brilliant composer.
you piece syllables
together into symphonies.
your words are
carefully crafted into a masterpiece.

in my every waking
i am greeted with new songs
that escape from
your lips
like sun rays at the break of dawn.
i can listen to you sing unceasingly.

but
the time of the
days, months, years that passed
became the length of the
distance between us,
and your songs got
softer and
softer,
eventually fading
into silence.

it turns out that was just an intermission.

you came back and
your songs start playing again
but
now i can't dance to your rhythm;
i can't harmonize to your melodies.

you were a brilliant composer
but now
i can't find
what your words mean to me.

I can name you
The exact date
On which he was shot:
June 28, 1914.

Who killed him?
Gavrilo Princip,
Member of the Bosnian Nationalist
Movement: The Black
Hand.

Suddenly this montage
Of bullet chambers
And dead wars
Shift -

Hands. You. Me.
Your fingers,
Which I long to hold.

Your voice,
Which I long to hear.

Which I have forgotten -

Sometimes it is hard
To trace the annals
Of history. Our
****** pawprints

Make the trail of
Arms and hatred
Harder to keep straight
Than sin and so

We walk backwards.
****** trail of footsteps
Perhaps stepped
Into

By a meandering
Mao, or ******,
Or Tojo. Muddied further
By the presence
Of an Alger
Hiss -

Your voice
Is a whisper,

It sings to me in
Secrets - I do not
Know you but I
Am in love,

You are beautiful and
I don't know why
But there's a
War. In my heart.

A war of attrition. Subtraction
Of causes. And the Archduke,
Well the Archduke
Is glad to see you.

Hear his dates blur
Into yours -

History tests,
And love notes
Crumpled away folded
And stored
In the same junk
Folder.

I imagine his hands
To have folded
Quite slowly,
Searching for something
To latch onto.

Like mine.

Empty palms flickering
Amidst a trail of
Blood and dust -

Oh, and yeah
The history lessons
Of course.