January 1919
What if I know, Liebknecht, who shot you dead.
Tiergarten trees unroll
staggering shadow, in spite of it all.
I am among the leaves; the inevitable
voices
have nothing left to say, the holed head
bleeding across a heap of progressive magazines;
torn from your face,
trees that turned around,
we do not sanctify the land with our wandering.
Look upon our children, they are mutilated.
Copyright Credit: Christopher Middleton, “January 1919” from The Word Pavilion & Selected Poems (New York: The Sheep Meadow Press, 2001).
Source: The Word Pavilion and Selected Poems (The Sheep Meadow Press, 2001)