Zoli

In the cave culture of home
where we were oppressed
you seemed so free, 
so wild and intelligent
experimenting with mind-expanding
substances, beautiful friend.

The restless night you rowed over
to an island on the swelled up Danube,
I crowned you as my clear-cut hero,
the man
who would always accept consequences.

I was not surprised to hear about
your departure from East Germany,
where as an iron-founder
you knocked down a Stasi informer.
They labelled it nervous breakdown,
but it won you even
your Commie father’s respect.

In Paris you became square-headed,
the epitome of a good citizen,
brazen-faced, shorn queer,
with a new, high-pitched voice,
Lecturing about the importance to adapt.

In a lucid dream I saw you as a television set
walking around, breaking the edges,
while the trees caressed the cobalt sky,
bending the space in vibrant waves, tenderly.

I’m so glad I felt free to say
“I love you, no matter what”,
as if talking to a bleeding wall
unaware
that you had to rehearse
and believe
your part of the iron master,
who knows no day or night
gazing into the molten magma,
but tames the earth.

Later, as if under water,
I heard your father telling me
that you killed yourself in Canada.

Csilla Toldy

If you have any comments on this poem, Csilla Toldy  would be pleased to hear them.