Before
I spoke their language as a philosopher.
I assumed harsh consonants accidents.
I stood in long lines at their communions.
They laid hands on. I listened bent forward.
I sat under their lectures, taking notes.
The seemed clean, free of the stain of questions.
They dressed so nicely, invited me out —
Beerhall nights where we polkaed like partners.
Oh, forgive me! I took them at their word.
“Call me but love,” I exclaimed up toward
The dark balcony, thought myself baptized,
Once more, But the baptismal font was dry.
I waited in white, their favorite color,
But their full immersion required drowning.
Findings At The Reichsta
After the fire, I pokered through white ash,
Hoping some point would prove still solid.
Preserved in a charred tin box, I found a
Bakelite doll, feathers its hula skirt.
I blew. The down departed to reveal
Factory-tooled vulva, creased, painted brown.
I dug deeper and recovered foil-wrapped
Cigars. The tinsel declared: “It’s a boy!”
After the fire, the hoses rolled again,
The balustrades and buttresses in dust,
We lumber out like the first reich, alte schule—
The fleecers, the fist-fighters, the fuckers.
The constitution in cinders, we turn
Feral, butterflying our foes’ foreskins.
