Mona Ghoneim: This Breeze

There is always this breeze from the sea
that picks up frequencies
while I buy bread
of life and love and hate and despair.
On a train
you told me Prague was nice
in the spring.
But I was cold and unshaven
below where the wind touched me
and the salt air from the Adriatic came in like
a radio station from a communist country
indoctrinating body parts.
I try on a sweater at Barney’s
and feel like I am suffocating
from freedom.
A wall went down that day
on you
I fell to my knees
seeing your greedy desire expand
for all things bright and beautiful
through salted eyes
I cried for a year looking out the window.
At dusk
I found you again
channeling the voices of Ceausescu supporters
when our youth and blood-red hearts converged.
A metrocard swipe and I
am at a desk
as if you never were
and I never
came over and over again
on those rocks.
I had never seen a bathtub
so large
in Hungary
or anywhere else.
But I knew you didn’t really believe
we could be true socialists.
You tasted success on your
tongue
in me
And I
I
had a premonition
that capitalism would ruin our sex life.
All creatures great and small
somewhere
Die
why not with this breeze from the sea
that carries me back to deep waters.

Copyright Mona Ghoneim, 2005. Used here by kind permission of its author.