“The winter sun used to be warmer”, I heard them say,
“And the grass was greener”, safely parroted someone else in dismay,
Then how come I feel there’s more sun than meets my myopic eyes?
And that there’s more shades of green than my Daltonian eyes can see?
But as the umbrella-mothers come and pick their children from school,
Walking slowly on my own, umbrella-less under the falling rain,
Because it is summer in my head,
And the children around me wearing shorts and preparing to go the beach,
Already smelling of salt and sand,
Waving to their mothers from the waves,
With pre-packaged remembrances of such days gone by,
With sweet naïve lies worth believing again,
In the same way James told his grandfather:
“I don’t think it was the real Santa Claus”,
Commenting about the impostor in the shopping mall,
With so many people make-believing and playing parts in movies,
Parts of the “adorable little girl on pony”,
Or “obnoxious customer in grocery store”, Or “Cop #1”,
A thread of light breaks through the heavy sky,
A mistake from the electrician in heaven perhaps,
And is soon turned back off,
But how come it chose my own head to shine on?
Is it because I am a catcher, a catcher in the rhyme?
For me to perform my miracle,
Pick me a child with an easy name to pronounce,
For I do not want to stutter in front of the crowd,
Especially not a crowd made of umbrella-mothers,
I will make the miracle credible in the same way,
In the same way the blue-eyed blind girl told me:
“I hate red although I’ve never seen it”,
Only to add “Would you have sex with anyone?”
“Even me?”

But I refused to have sex with her,
Can you imagine the shame?
Had her dorm roommate knew,
She’d have asked her:
“Among all people, you had sex with him?”
Only to add: “Are you blind?”
In the battlefields of my conscience,
Soldiers went from their worship to their warship,
Molesting little boys and girls in the process,
As they fantasized thoughts verging towards necrophilia,
With white hairs and wrinkled faces and floppy breasts,
And smooth pelvic regions as soft as newborns,
With some of them claiming temporary insanity,
And others being temporarily in sanity,
With God on their side,
My soldiers won wars and ravaged women,
Leaving those not on the pill barefoot and pregnant,
Even the female soldiers and officers ravaged women,
Leaving them barefoot, though not pregnant,
And then the soldiers had parties on their own later,
First mixed ones, and then each gender alone,
With ranks being erased in the lust of passion,
With male generals getting topped by privates,
So privately they wouldn’t forget their privates’ private parts,
And women officers getting cunnilingus from infirmary nurses,
And they woke up from their dreams,
To reestablish hierarchy again,
To go back to their wives and husbands,
And to their children for those who have some,
To play umbrella-mothers on rainy days,
When it is summer in my head.