Communist Habits

by Lauren?iu Ion

They held us a good chunk of time away from the water,
so we put our legs in sand to warm them— shy as we were,
we sat on the edge and watched our parents fishing.
The radio stations were catching the demonstrations
of the older people, their lies were in fact evidences of joy,
useless prides. We were their Sunday’s children,
those who carried their fishing rods back and forth and
who had to light their own cigarettes in the same place,
few years later, but not very concerned about the overthrow
of communism. And now, as we look over the river,
over the hills, there is a helpless unit— what sociologists
would call a building, a model, which can shape its
identity by taking different forms,— we know that
every place tells its own story, everything echoes from its
own membrane; the river carries its burden, it leads
its destiny to the outfall and the gnarled stumps show
the place where terror once passed. Then we go home,
each one to different shelters, aware that it won’t take long
until we’d seek our evidences of joy, away from the world.

Lauren?iu Ion‘s poems have appeared in Instigatorzine, Istanbul Literary Review, Pif Magazine and elsewhere. His first poetry collection is entitled Destul? pace pentru un r?zboi (Enough peace for a war – Humanitas Publishing House, 2010). He lives in Târgovi?te, Romania.

Founder and Editor in Chief Barney Rosset worked ceaselessly on the Evergreen Review until his death on February 21, 2012. This poem was among his final selections for future publication.