THE GLOVES

for Rhoda Waller

Yes we did march around somewhere and yes it was cold

we shared our gloves because we had a pair between us

and a New York City cop also shared his big gloves with me

--strange, he was there to keep our order

and he could do that and I could take that back then.

 

We were marching for the Santa Maria, Rhoda,

a Portuguese ship whose crew had mutinied.

They demanded asylum in Goulart’s Brazil

and we marched in support of that demand

in winter in New York City, back and forth

before the Portuguese consulate

Rockefeller Center 1961.

 

I gauge the date by my first child

--Gregory was born late in 1960—

as I gauge so many dates

by the first the second the third the fourth

and I feel his body now again, close to my breast

held against cold to our strong steps of dignity.

 

That was my first public protest, Rhoda,

strange you should retrieve it now

in a letter

out of this love of ours alive these many years.

How many protests since that one, how many

marches and rallies

for greater causes larger wars deeper wounds

cleansed or untouched by our rage.

 

Today a cop would hardly unbuckle his gloves

and press them around my blue-red hands.

Today a baby held to breast

would be a child of my child, a generation removed.

The world is older, and I in it am older

burning slower with the same passions.

The passions are older

and so I am also younger

for knowing them more deeply

and moving in them, pregnant with fear

but fighting.

 

The gloves are still there in the cold

passing from hand to hand.