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gary soto’s “who will know us?” - honaker lyrics

for jaroslav seifert

it is cold, bitter as a penny
i’m on a train, rocking toward the cemetery
to visit the dead who now
breathe through the gr-ss, through me
through relatives who will come
and ask, where are you?
cold. the train with its cargo
of icy coal, the conductor
with his loose b-ttons like heads of crucified saints
his mad puncher biting zeros through tickets

the window that looks onto its slate of old snow
cows. the barbed fences throat-deep in white
farm houses dark, one wagon
with a shivering horse
this is my country, white with no words
house of silence, horse that won’t budge
to cast a new shadow. fence posts
that are the people, spotted cows the machinery
that feed officials. i have nothing
good to say. i love paris
and write, “long live paris!”
i love athens and write
“the great book is still in her lap.”
bats have intrigued me

the pink vein in a lilac
i’ve longed to open an umbrella
in an english rain, smoke
and not give myself away
drink and call a friend across the room
stomp my feet at the smallest joke
but this is my country
i walk a lot, sleep
i eat in my room, read in my room
and make up women in my head —
nostalgia, the cigarette lighter from before the war
beauty, tears that flow inward to feed its roots

the train. red coal of evil
we are its p-ssengers, the old and young alike
who will know us when we breathe through the gr-ss?

- honaker lyrics

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