for Khotsofalang

i want to talk to you about people
who should call you uncle

let's huddle
against these bullets

let us move away
but always past
the hour of sleep,

come to me when you find
the middle of my darkness

mom is here to help us
find who put grief
in the middle of our photograph

a feeling eats the house,
its roof-beams, smears walls
with you, sits on shelves
in the dusty study

where dad wrote
what touched
the nerves
of the government.

---

Peka High School, mid-sixties