print previewback RONDA PISZK BROATCH
In Dreams, My Ancestors
It is the shape of night when the smoke has cleared.
It is the shape of night after the train is gone.
I’m the one running after the train.
I’m the one calling, waving my madness stick.
Between me and the base of the stairs lies a violin.
To the bottom of the staircase flies the violin.
It sounds like chalk. Wind through barbed wire. Heavy
wooden case, cold metal handle digs my small hand.
Each time I travel the halls of school my room
disappears. Each time I’m a year too late.
The gunman haunts my dreams. Sometimes
it’s only his dogs behind the season-less door.
Transport. Train sport. Port of translation, of train-spotting.
This little train goes to Łódź, this one goes to Chełmno.
There go the trees, dancing by. There goes the wheat
field before the rains come. The color of fog.
When I look into the camera’s leavings I see
your face when I look into the camera’s leavings.
It is an embrace. A transfer of papers. Even
in sleep, your arms, your breast gives heat.
Given the choice, I’ll not open the door to the dogs.
Opening the door, it’s the moon and all her sisters.
Where the shadows begin, there will I dwell.
At shadow’s end I’ll exist again. 
In
Dreams, My Ancestors
Instead of Death I Welcome the Stranger