BOY WITH CELLO
After the photo by Eva Besnyö, 1931
In 1931, you carried a cello as a pack.
It was so much bigger than you.
The weight of the world was on your back.
So young to understand hunger and lack,
so small to know what you had to do.
In 1931 you carried a cello as a pack
and walked tree-lined cul-de-sacs
in worn-out leather shoes.
The weight of the world was on your back
as wood, as heavy air reverberating back
against the bow, as the coins bystanders carelessly threw.
In 1931, you carried a cello as a pack,
but no one carried you, even as your arms went slack
with exhaustion, with the sheer weight of what you knew.
The weight of the world was on your back,
little Roma, little wanderer, busking between war clouds gathering black.
No one stayed or listened long enough to find out if you grew.
In 1931, you carried a cello as a pack.
The weight of the world was on your back.
***
Issa M. Lewis is a graduate of the New England College MFA in Poetry program, was the 2013 recipient of the Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize awarded by Backbone Press, and a runner up in the 2017 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize awarded by CALYX. Her poems have appeared in Pearl, Naugatuck River Review, Blue Lyra Review, and many others. Her first chapbook collection of poetry, Infinite Collisions, was published in 2017 from Finishing Line Press. She currently teaches composition and professional writing at Davenport University and serves on the editorial board of Trio House Press, a small press publishing distinct voices in American poetry. She lives with her husband and two sons, enjoying every beautiful season in west Michigan.