i was not there in tiananmen squarenot in nineteen hundred and eighty nine
i remember
a huge square
and huge square buildings
and a long red wall
with a portrait of mao
i remember a monolith
a statue
(maybe it was somewhere else?)
i remember smartly dressed guards
around the statue
and we climbed it to take pictures
and they couldn’t stop us
because we were tourists
who didn’t know any better
i remember some hotdog-like stand
and people in blue and white and brown and black and grey
walking around
staring at us
because we were in tight denim jeans
and tucked in tee shirts
and high heels
and they were in pajamas
i can still see the flat stones
covering the square
square stones laid end to end
and side to side
hundreds of them
a greying white in the sunlight
when i try to see the squares now
i see thousands of heads
not squares
and people in blue and white and brown and black and grey
and red
and when i look again
the stones there are
greyish white in the sunlight
some blotched it seems
with brown that might have been red
but still square stones
laid end to end
and side to side
hundreds of them
and no different from each other.
© Cindy Lapeña, 2012