Paul B. Janeczko

“You are making musicin the shadow of the gallows.”

“A white linen tableclothedged with pink roses --Mama's favorite pattern --flowed like a bride's trainfrom sidewalk to curb to gutter.Papa stared at black boot markscrossing it like sins.”

“Blue sky beyond barbed wire I wish I were sky.”

“I will stay with her until it is time to close her eyelids wrap the wretched sheet around her bones.”

“Dead or not, he must taste my Sarah's ashes.”

“I ordered my Jews closer.”

“Beasts of burden, we shouldered bundles of what pieces of the past we were allowed to keep as we joined the river of fear, a current of shuffling feet, sobs, and whimpers that crept past dark mouths of archways and windows of Terezin.”