print previewback KRISTINA FAUST
Fressenstille
Starting with the top bricks
in July
and working downward
row by row
the sun had baked the building.
In August we moved slowly and barely
touched.
Then the power went out.
We all poured into
following instinct
sense of each other
and shuffled,
following instinct
sense of each other
and shuffled,
the dark street,
and the sparking
at our flanks,
unspeaking,
toward the square.
We found an Indian place with candles out and stopped there.
A man died, someone at the next table said. He was underground,
working on a transformer when it
exploded.
You know, said one of us after a while,
the Germans have a word for the quiet of animals eating. 
The Bus of Mrs. M.
Fressenstile
A Record of Us