Toy(ing) with the Revolution

You can’t wrap your fingers
around it, the elusive it.

There aren’t too many
things to wrap a finger

around, but the image
burns my eyes; your

fingers long and rough
wrapping around the neck

of the establishment. You
mutter it is all gift wrap

for tiny toys anyway. I try to laugh
but all I see are toy machetes

and your fingers the revolutionaries
taking it all down; your breath

the revolution itself, pulling
it in and spitting it back out.

Your tears create the flood
that washes them all away.

Aleathia Drehmer 2010

Published by Prathamata (India), Print, 2010