The Smoke over Tallahassee
This poem was inspired after I read Jenna DeWitt’s A Citadel to Normalcy this morning. It’s one of those pieces where the words just spilled out, unlocked by DeWitt’s poetry, and I decided to let them lay with minimal restructuring.
The Smoke over Tallahassee
They burned our books before;
under cover of night so the flames stood proud.
They burned our books on the Opernplatz.
—
It is peekaboo and hide-and-seek,
this game of finding and hiding.
It is ring-around-a-rosie or twenty questions.
—
And our children we once invited to dance,
to laugh, to read, to sing
—our children are beautiful singers.
—
In classrooms we took the triangle
they sewed to our fathers.
We painted it in colors and put the stickers
on our doors.
We told the dancing children “you are safe”
These desks are home base.
—
A pocket full of posies
—
“It is presumed that Dora may have been killed in the attack1”
They burned our books on the Opernplatz.
—
We have met and built new words for our bodies.
But they burned our books on the Opernplatz.
Our lives are too dangerous to document if
You listen when we tell you about them.
—
We once stained an ivory
tower in a rainbow of color but then
They burned our books on the Opernplatz.
—
When the blocks fall, you can build your house again.
And now the tower is so much taller:
Blue on violet,
green on blue,
yellow on green,
orange on yellow,
red on orange.
And don’t forget light blue, white, pink, and brown and black.
And crown it with a yellow circle.
—
“Beauty from ashes.” from ashes from ashes
—
ashes ashes
—
They are scraping the stickers off the doors
all across the state and no we don’t carry that book,
and no we will not ask Reed about his…parents,
and no we won’t be learning about that this year,
and no we will never make Anita uncomfortable,
and no I have nothing to tell you about your ancestors,
and no that club is gone,
and no, and no, and no.
And who am I?
—
I have no name that I can say.
You must not call me by it
I am Dora, maybe, for now.
—
My spouse?
I cannot tell you about her
I cannot let you see me
They said
you might see
yourself if you do.
And that will never do
they said.
—
So who do you think that I am?
What we are is hidden, you’ll have to seek
me out to see yourself—but not in books
and never ask.
We do not show or tell
anymore.
—
We have said that
Dorothy is our friend.
Maybe now I will tell you that
I like Jazz.
—
How many questions is that now?
I lost track, you see
They burned our books on the Opernplatz.
—
Peekaboo!
—
No darling, now you just
take your hands away from your
eyes so I can see your smile
or frown
or tears.
—
I know.
It is hard to become what you are not.
We could stop it—you did/do/must not have to become
what you never were
but they would find us and
take you from me or me
from you.
—
We all fall down.
