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A photo of my father at age 15

It wasn't until I saw the pictures of you as a teenager,
so thin, so tall. The same smile, the same
face, except that you knew less then.
I could see it in your eyes--the keen
desire to flee. Those figures around you
in the photo, knew nothing, saw
nothing. How could they have known, without
using your right-now face as a plumb line?
You left in the middle of the night--
or you may as well have.
You may as well have slipped away
romantically as lied about the length of a trip
to Vienna.
So then you were a refugee. How funny
the world's politics are! Where could you flee,
now, to escape your unrest? Knowing
what you know now, you may not have left,
you said, in a moment, I'm sure, of weakness.
It wasn't until that picture surfaced, there,
in my aunt's hand; when she pointed and said, Joska.
Then I knew, without knowing anything
about bread lines or goulash communism, that
what you left behind was childhood,
and what you rushed to was the future, was us.