for Leni on her 30th birthday
March 8th 1970
We could hardly be farther apart on this day,
or closer together--me up here in the penitentiary,
you in East Germany with our new baby & your old family
mourning your mother's death
so far away from here. The Rolling Stones
singing in my ear, your letter yesterday,
my typewriter broke the day before, writing this
on a borrowed machine, waiting for Sunny
to come see me again, these are the things
that keep me close to you, the everyday routines
the reminders, that we do have a life of our own,
that we have grown together
and remain together thru all this shit, that
we have made it before, that it is almost six years now
since we started this common life, that it was Thanksgiving
1964 that we consummated it, "let's spend the
night together" like the Stones are singing
right now as I write this for your birthday--

& that's the one thing that could make us closer
right now, let's spend the
rest of our whole fucking lives together,
revolutionary woman,
revolutionary mother & sister,
born on this glorious day of March 8th,
30 years ago on this planet,
International Women's Day,
woman of song & beauty,
woman of my weirdo jailhouse dreams,
woman of my whole life,
heroic woman and sister and inspiration--

what can I say that I haven't told you already
so many times in these poems & scribbles
You know where I am, I am with you
Come & get me & take mex with you
wherever you go.
 

Copyright John and Leni Sinclair publication without permission is prohibited.