Eastern Europe, Summer, 1941

I must find a wall.
I can sit if I have a wall
to lean against.
This is my plan:
First, find a wall,
tall, square, and stable.
Then, as best as I am able,
brace against it,
brace my  back
which is tired, hurting, stiff,
and sliding slowly down,
I'll bend my knees,
which have not bent in days,
first locked in sad, long lines,
now,  held up against
the lean of others
in a windowless, crowded railcar,
where the stench is so thick
with  human waste—
excrements,
sweat,
the children's tears—
it repels my need to rest.
But, oh, if
I  could have a wall
with a gate that opens
wide to the other side
where grapevines grow
under  hot sun
and the warm air stirs
with the flight of  birds
and bergamot and balm
and pinks and pines,
I  would be free
to sit down.
 
June  3, 2007, Ukraine: A 1941 unmarked grave of more than 5,000 Holocaust victims was unearthed by workers drilling to lay down  pipes.

 

 

Helen Dano is an MFA candidate at the City College of New York.