Some Spent Roses
We met the night the world-
Renowned Soviet ensemble
Was in town
Playing Shostakovich: the
String quartet number eight.
“My great grandmother died
At Birkenau,” she said,
Afterwards, when we idled
On fifty-seventh Street,
Figuring out where to go.
“I can never
Get my mind around
What torment
It must have been
To be packed into a train,
Still living, among the dead.
“With tears swelling,
My grandmother often said,
I looked like her.
“When I think of her,
Trembling in the cold,
On the death line,
That I can relive,
Myself.
Although she did not survive
To tell me,
I can feel
The violent numbness of her despair.
Death is a garment
Everyone must wear.”
Her living room gave onto –
A rare thing in New York –
The great green summer fields
Of Central Park.
Out on her terrace we could see
A black night sky.
She lit a joint,
And we got high,
And went to bed together bye and bye.
In the morning,
After coffee, croissants, and kisses,
She demurred. We parted.
I left reluctantly.
She turned away to cut
Some spent roses
That climbed upon a trellis,
Using a dainty pair of silver scissors.