A Train
1.
A train to the Lithuanian border near skittles my father
who’d just deserted the Czar’s army, conscript, eighteen,
Jew hidden under the floor-length full skirt of a passenger.
No tall tale this, his escape from soldiers who checked
for runaways like him, terror sewn to his cap’s visor. A stoic
woman beckoned as shield. Breath held and heartbeat skipped.
Beneath the woman’s skirt, he recalled in fast-reverse
his comrade napping on duty. My father seized that gift, fled
the camp through the back of the tent which he, a tailor,
basted from outside to erase exit’s gap. Short, slim and fleet—
he ran through beloved birch forests and town to the station.
Steps not pre-planned, the sole train of thought—free October light.
2.
A train in Germany, boxcars dark, airless—herded humans
living-hell-bound. Barely alive, like dressmaker manikins—
not a stitch of extra with them—only the hair on their heads
and that, a temporary wealth. A train of zero destination.
3.
“A” Train the elegant Duke composes and thousands board its cars
packed full of hope’s riffs—blue work days, nights played
with horn and key that try to jazz away the taste of strange fruit.
The hum of track drills into shoulders, tired and lifted.
Hair-raising, the truth of whipstitched lives song-and-shoestring-
danced-through, a threadbare patch quilt catching as catch can.
A train.
Here.
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