Last edit: February 13, 2023, 10:03 am ET

One:

a dried up old lemon

on a plate

in the living room,

a daily reminder

of what I must

at all costs

not become,

a small talisman

to prevent

the scarcity of love

from shriveling

my natural sensuous soul.

Two:

a reproduction of a Renaissance painting

of two pinch-faced

penny-pinching

money lenders,

a reminder

of how ugly my puss will become

if I give in

to just making a living

and fall prey

to commercial seductions

and stop aspiring and aspiring

to contribute my best

to the liberation.

Three:

a photo of my dead father

who, outraged,

protested the prejudice

faced by proletarians,

and the Negro people,

and who,

for my lullabies,

played scratchy old records

of Bessie Smith

and Billie Holiday,

and who took me as a kid

on picket lines,

and Labor Day parades,

and to secret meetings

of pinko subversives

who violently advocated

overthrowing

racial prejudice

and poverty

and fascism

and the power of the propertied,

and who told me exciting stories

about unionizing

Hearn’s Department Store

on 14th Street

and about the agitation-propaganda theater

of the 1930s,

and who made the life of grown-ups

sound like such a great adventure

(yes, I've taken up your red flag, daddy).

Four:

two photos of Bertolt Brecht

hanging on my kitchen wall

(the appropriate place),

the young B.B.

jaunty-capped,

self-satisfied,

egotistical,

ignoring me,

the old B.B.

smiling

ironically,

sadly,

wisely,

looking right out at me,

his eyes comforting,

his poems,

spare,

simple,

economical,

his intent:

to play some small part

in the destruction

of private power,

in the construction

of our control --

an artist,

a revolutionary,

an example.