What Crime ?

What crime did I commit ?
Did I abuse as
some Nazi butcher ?
Did I throw young pregnant women, patriots, from helicopters in Argentina ?
Did I break the fingers,
before killing him,
of Victor Jara ?
Did I bomb the Moncada
on the first September 11th ?
What have I done to deserve this ?

I loved you
and swore to care for you.
I would teach you all I know
I would read with you
Multiple languages – Greek, Spanish, French – I would share with you.
We would walk along the Bosporus,
on whose waters Roman galleons once plied.
I only
Loved
You

I believed:
When you said you loved me
it was true.
All those words
Touches
Looks.
Like a young communist in the 1930s
I believed.
Like an old communist in the 1950s
am I betrayed ?

Now ?
You look st me with cold eyes
a cold heart
I am nothing
Less than nothing

Whom have I abused ?
Who did I torture ?
I stretched my hand to you
I saw you
I heard you
I listened to you
I offered to walk a path with you
to teach you.
And you walked with me.

Then Shame
and her sister Fear intervened.

Now
I howl like a dog
like a fucking dog
drunk in the night.

I rip out my hair
I tear my clothes.
I wish only to sleep
and sleep and sleep.

My heart is destroyed
My soul gone
Alone I walk, again
alone.

What crime have I committed
to suffer so ?
My beard soaked with tears.
Broken, you’ve left me.

What have I done ?
What have you done ?
No fascist this man,
my life spent in service to others.
Yet have I committed some crime,
that you would treat me so ?

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2017
Between Charybdis and Scylla