'The Wall', by Iftekhar Sayeed
You were a card-carrying communist
You had a one-track mind
You had no other ideas
And refused to listen to any other
You were a mule!
My mule! I loved you!
My parents did not think
Much of you, they didn’t think of you at all
I married against their wish
I sure enjoyed that fight!
It seemed we had nothing
But those cheap Moscow-printed
Books from Progress Publishers
We had a home
And then the Berlin wall collapsed
And with it – everything
It seems that
The only thing that stood
Between us and
Disaster
Was that wall
How easily you walked over!
I watched you, transfixed
You listened to new ideas
Made them your own
You became a mule
Again
Now the refrigerator holds stacks of food
As though we were expecting a famine
The TV is switched on at 6:00
You come home in a car
You even go out to vote
You used to say
It was just a piece of paper to fool the people
I wonder if you’ve ever
Thought of me – how I feel,
How I felt
What I’m going through
Thank goodness I’m not young anymore
I would have died
It’s not just a question of trust
Betrayal and all that!
That would have made good
Melodrama
It’s so much more
It’s trying to decide
Whether to leave you, or go on loving
My memories