1974

•

I remember coming home from the demonstration,
placing the pot of chile on the stove to cook,

spreading the socialist newspapers
I had gathered all over the kitchen table,
Militant to the right,
Workers Vanguard to the left,

picking up one newspaper, reading it,
agreeing with it and putting it down,
picking up another newspaper, reading it,
and agreeing with that one too,

benefitting from the articles in each of them,
each party offering their own analysis,
strategy, tactics and program,

wondering why they couldn't be
in the same organization,
despite their differences,

the enemy after all being the capitalists,
still so strong,
our side, the working people,
still so divided,

then thinking back to the demonstration
I had attended that day,
the workers marching against the cutbacks
and layoffs,

the hospital workers, the students,
the teachers, the transit workers,

each with their own signs and slogans,
yet marching together,
chanting, they say get back,
we say fight back,

wondering why the socialist parties
with so much to offer
kept splitting into smaller
and smaller parts,

the SWP from the CP,
the WWP from SWP,

the RSL from the IS,
the IS from whomever,

the similarities between the groups
so profound,
the differences with the banks and corporations
so mammoth,

the newspapers spread out
all over the kitchen table
in the little tenement apartment
on East Ninth Street,

outside the cars roaring
up and down the block,

the music from the bodega
thumping far into the night.