FACING THE WALL
A woman turns the mirror around
to face the wall: now the wall
reflects the dead snow
crunching under iron soles.
The fire freezes.
Nothingness puts on its bayonets.
Jan Polkowski
"MY SWEET MOTHERLAND"
I was born in a train,
on a moving frontier,
as a Jewish runt in the corner of a freight car,
as a Polish-speaking Wehrmacht soldier
marching on Moscow,
as an NKVD-man of unknown descent
shooting at my ancestors: Poles,
Lithuanians, Tatars - nobles with a two-headed typhus
on their crests.
I was born on their moving graves :
in Kazakhstan , in Lithuania,
in
Cz~stochowa,
Cracow, Katyn , London.
This is my citizenship-your belly
raised
beneath your breasts (Annie, little mother) .
(My Invisible Motherland,
we'll be true to each other.)
It no longer matters .
