We weren’t around in 1916
for our uprising. we barely own
the recollection of what it must have felt like
to be our own depraved race
for the first time.
for some of us still
there is nothing to remember
but brotherly betrayal;
priorities and politics
& cardinal directions.
I try not to think about it very much,
how my features betray my geography,
lacking independence, and clime theory,
a long history of rickets
and vitamin deficiency.
I try not to think of how badly
you want me to be dull;
how you’d like me to betray my genealogy
and play nice:
the passion for history waning,
you have forgotten wars are always over meaning, symbol,
efficiency, linguistics,
interpretation and
my people, our people
die from rotten potatoes and fight,
dream of utopias, banshees,
spirits, energy,
physics
and have licked wounds for hundred of years
that have never healed.
(c) 2007 Dorothy J. Burk
