Cold Wars (a very old poem)

Cold Wars

I pick up the child with scorched hands,
My head all bundled like a Russian woman,
My mouth unpainted and white like Siberia.

Inside the cataclysm, the warstorm.
I'm feeling like a Bolshevik,
Rather martyred, rather burned by the Party,

Rather like this wounded child.
She's got my eyes and pale lips, her
Swollen breast equals my cry, restrained

Only out of necessity. Maybe she is me.
Maybe I never made it past the age of three.
Maybe I never made it to heaven.

She's beautiful. Her warm blood
Touches my frigid skin and as I kiss her,
My lips turn red with her life,

Ending in a tremor I shall never forget.
Wrong! I scream in between the cold wars,
I was mistaken. I was mistaken. I was mistaken.

~laura tattoo
5/26/77