Born Again

The revolution will begin at home:
I will draw moustaches and horns
on the ancestral faces in the photo albums,
translate my waltz memories
into breakdance routines
for the skeletons in the closets.

I must listen to myself,
gather my input,
conduct a needs survey,
form a one-man focus group,
appoint me as facilitator;
and if it doesn’t work out,
I must let me go,
no severance package,
no staff farewell party,
and carry on by myself—
demand more relevance, transparency, accountability—
and if I don’t cooperate,
but instead stonewall, co-opt, buy time,
then I need to occupy myself,
set up a tent on my porch,
ladle out communal soup,
wiggle my fingers in consensus with persons unknown,
instigate civil disobedience,
chant, wave placards in my face,
grin belligerently as I’m taken down
by the usual father-figure policeman,
cuffed and locked in the paddy wagon,
placed once again in the familiar solitary confinement.

I will scratch the number of days served
into the cell walls,
stage a hunger strike,
dig a tunnel out past the fences,
emerge in disguise,
work my way to Mexico,
bathe in the warm ocean water,
buy tequila for everyone in my adopted village,
dance stately tangos with high-cheeked grandmothers in Mayan ruins,
until the revolution is terminated
when I drop dead climbing the temple steps,
and I am reincarnated as myself,

a Pancho Villa look-alike,
the real me, for now,
until the next revolution.



--Bill Peterson