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Freedom
(by Himani Bannerji: 1986)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himani_Bannerji
Someone is standing in a three-piece suit.
He is lecturing at us.
The stylus of his teeth are falling precisely
in the right grooves.
He has filled the black spaces behind him
With abstractions of paper flowers and birds
He wants them to sing, to go on blooming
“I am talking about freedom,” he says
“A complete freedom of thought and action,” he says
“Over there in Russia they have put out her light.”
Over here
Below the platform he stands on
A woman is counting her pennies for coffee
She has a plastic bag which is her cosmos
Her flat feet are terribly swollen
Blue veins stand out on her legs
like a child’s page of knots and crosses
Her mouth hugs the French fry
as the only certainty she knows
She eats with great love, lingeringly
wipes her hand on her hair
Her eyes weep freely unaccountably.
Sighing, listening to the radio she turns to me
“That’s right dear,” she says to me “Here we are free
we can vote here you know
choose our own government
They can’t over there in Russia.”