Blouse

– Kron Vollmer –

I had a blouse.  It was cute and had a red collar.   

When I was young, I loved birds and it caused me pain.  

Beneath the branches, beneath my skin, I belonged to this world and the Islands.   

I belonged to the dirty photocopiers knowing that revolution would come.  

  

I had a blouse.  It was checkered.  I have not forgotten the design   

and the painful hours of youth. Those who called me names.   

Things that should have been lost but remained.  

  

I had a blouse.  It belonged to my school uniform.   

Little brothers followed me, carrying their trust, their carefully collected  

strings.  Restraints for their brother wolf.  

  

Time passed.  We ate stew.  I protected the little ones, the meek.    

The newspapers, some disreputable, piled up on the porch unread.