the first love

You love your country, Frenki? This place
where you grow up, become man? Yes,
I love her plenty, too, but she is not my number one love.
That one is far away, over land and sea. Maybe
more over sky today, but when I come here
was everyone in the big boat. Avion was
not so much then.

I still think of her like home, you know? She is
not my home no more, but that is how I call her.

When I was little boy, we have the big war. Then, after,
we have communisti. It was then, when I grow up
to man, I decide to leave her. I love her, you know,
but I have to leave. The communisti re”zim
was too strong, they choke me up to the neck, nearly.
So, I go.
I come to Australia.

Frenk, sometimes I think of her too much, still. Is like
I have hole in my heart, but here is my living. Here is me.
Sometimes, this is very hard.

Communisti is gone now. Is free much more,
but is not mine. My love is from long time back,
and these new ones, what they can do for man like me?
Nothing. Is just new re”zim instead old one.
I am now Australski strange-man, with heart for here,
and heart back with lover from too many old years gone.

Yes, can be hard, sometimes.

© Frank Prem, 2003

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This poem was published in a short lived poetry Journal – Salt Lick Quarterly – in 2003