Berlin, a First Visit

there was the notion of a child, when i

saw that photo of you leaning against the graffitied

train station wall in berlin, i thought, yes.

before what i could comprehend, the turn of

the days, where i wear your clothes but travel solo,

where i meet a half-kempt boy in a waschsalon who

pushed his dirty clothes around in a shopping cart, where it hails

in april, hails the size of millets, coming down against the sunlight

behind Brandenburger Tor, the streets littered not with flustered

linden flowers but with the strewn feathers of a flash mob abandoning

itself to a pillow fight, before the icy grains turn into tufts of snow.

it was just such a flash, a whisper that sounded like a statement

but was in fact a cherishing: i'd bear the heaviness

of being fruitful. the sear of having had, i'd bear it for you.