on the street below
the tanks rolled on like
congealing lava
you grab the backpack
you prepared a week
ago and add your
mother’s antique salt
cellar then rail your
self slowly down the
skeletal stairway
to the bombed out square.
you do not look at
the latest bodies–
the old aunt next door
whose broken limbs are
swastikad around
a post– you leave them
in their mortal outrage
keep your mouth purse-shut
in the acrid cold
you join the head-bent
line shuffling forward
in the buffeting
racket of gunfire.
you reach the station
where apocalypse
wears a human face
poetry chosen by Emilia Mirazchiyska
