I Can’t Remember my First Memory.
And if it’s inscrutable as a carpet of sunlight on a plastic toy bobbing in the backyard of the house my father built with his bare hands and drinking habits, with his rolled up sleeves and his construction buddies who always threatened to sell us to the gypsies in a burlap sack. In a burlap sack. And if the wind scrubbed the sidewalk sideways of what I remember with whole tree leaves turning cartwheels up and back the stairwell wearing a dark tie a little loose around the neck? And if the toy I pulled behind me as a boy while the sun skipped & skipped sheering through the clouds to bounce off of that object on a string to live there forever as the honey-hot scent of play and coy wrinkle.
Gene Tanta was born in Timisoara, Romania and lived there until 1984, when his family immigrated to the United States. Since then, he has lived in DeKalb, Iowa City, New York, Oaxaca City, Iasi, Milwaukee, and Chicago. He is a poet, visual artist, and translator of contemporary Romanian poetry. His first poetry book is called Unusual Woods (BlazeVOX, 2010). His second poetry book is called Pastoral Emergency and it is forthcoming. [