Would the Woman

•

Would the woman
who came to our public meeting
Friday night
with her energy jeans
and her intelligent silence

and then at the anti-war
demonstration
when they took Ray away
and the air got
scarier

screaming,
'you can lock him up,
you can lock her up

but you can't lock up
the power
of working people --

the overproduction is too much
the rich are too few

you can't pretend
Vietnam happened
you can't put the toothpaste
back in the tube

U.S. Out of Iraq
No more blood for oil

with our bullshit detectors
working people see
through you' --

the excoriator
of all imperialist war,
the trillium
of our industrial proletariat

the very blazing
radiant energy that
had been missing
somehow,
somewhere

from our whole
ragtag
class struggle
operation --

please come
back
to the bookstore
on Canal Street

after the traffic
and the rush hour
and another day
in the plastics factory

I want to
talk with you

I want to
talk with you
about the forest
and the trees

I want to
talk with you
about the ground
workers need to seize

I want to
talk with you
about the factory
and the office
and the permanent
revolution

I want to
try something.