Poem

The Children's Hour
It is an old and constant journey
unfolding behind closed eyes

Running to greet my father
every sunset

as his train rolls back again
through the clouds above Radomsk
boxcars of ghosts whisper
above pebbled rails

In Poland grey skies
defeated the sun
like wilted lemon
by his glass of tea that sits cold
time ceased, unclocked

behind closed eyes
our shuttered windows
sealed by the dust
we are in-
the Children's Hour

Come play, tell me if the haze is really outside
where dogs bray and smoke in perpetuity
rises in the distance?

Or is it only in my heart?
that pine trees populate the world
in which our family became kindling?
I never know
because the dead have names I never knew

Come visit
during Children's Hour
the Nocturnes play themselves
the trains no longer whistle but
listen between the whispers
my father says farewell...to whom?
We never said goodbye.

2013 (c)
Rachelle Singer