Fellow Traveler

Rain, for the last day that I will be known
the way that i want them to know me.
Rain, for reporters' predictable leads
on the darkening stain of my name.
Rain, like the morning you left with
the international brigade.
The streak of your face at the glass
as the train pulled away.
The Aspidistra that refused to die,
miniature camera in a Cambridge tie,
to get that Soviet control to crack a smile,
all in our file, my fellow traveler.
Sleep, for the telephones' silent receiver
on its' beetle-black back in the hall.
Sleep, for the bottle that rolled off my desk
and danced itself out on the floor.
Sleep, for the overturned ashtray
splayed across an unmade bed.
While i interrogate every word that I ever said.
I fall from buildings into angry air,
lecture my students in my underwear,
but once i was allowed to dream of you isntead,
my dear defected fellow traveler.
How you booked your final passage,
with a passport you paid for with a pair of roller skates.
How you dyed your hair and mustache,
put on a Mid-Atlantic accent, but you couldn't stop the shakes
when they asked where you had come from,
and you muttered "that's a good one"
that you were "never really certain."
Every umbrella down on Portman Square
opens and closes to arraign our fair
theory of something I can't picture anymore;
a forgery for my fellow traveler.
I won't wait to see,
I still believe in you and me,
my fellow traveler.