Winter 2012

Table of Contents - Vol. VIII, No. 4

 

Poetry    Translations    Fiction    Non-fiction    Reviews   

Maja Trochimczyk

 

 

A Visit to Gdansk Oliwa, August 1969

My mother’s aunt, Ciocia Jadzia works in a kiosk in Oliwa
Selling papers and razor blades in a ruined city
Of charcoal buildings and five-year plans
She hides the best blades for her faithful clients
In the kiosk on the way to the Cathedral

Where angels with puffy wooden cheeks
Triumphantly blow their golden trumpets
Walls and benches shake with the majesty of Bach
The gold-starred ceiling shimmers
In summer evening cold

The music of my seaside vacation heals the grey hours
Of sitting in the kiosk, selling matches and tickets
After Ciocia Jadzia goes home to cook dinner
For her silent husband, drunk artist son

She works – Uncle Dominic, a proud nobleman
In a top hat and a black Sunday coat
Walks through Oliwa’s parks
With his last, prize-winning Holstein cow
Grieving the loss of his estates – the life he had had
Before that fateful train ride from the East

He still sees the red-roofed manor with a white porch
Bronze oak leaves scattered on the gravel path
Silver gray of Lake Switez
Golden rye fields before the harvest

He walks home to rusty bricks pocked by bullet holes,
Smoke-dark hallways, and a burst of color
In the courtyard where asters tremble
Like a bouquet of fallen stars

 

 

Most Wanted

He has the sadness of the damned in his eyes
The left eye, emptied of heartsease
The right, clouded with despair

Thick lines on his cheeks point downward
A snarling rictus of lips, once moistened with kisses
“There is no hope,” he thinks, “none ever”

What would you expect? He said “No” every time
Except when denial was healthy – the virus
Multiplied in his veins, pocked his grief-stricken face

Rejections do this to you, so does contempt
He said, “Not in a thousand years, don’t even dream”
And he stopped dreaming – to die slowly

In a refusal to breathe in the light, drink wisdom
From a goblet of fire, studded with diamonds
Of kindness, luminous outpouring of grace

 

© Maja Trochimczyk

 

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Poetry    Translations    Fiction    Non-fiction    Reviews   

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