Reversal of Fortune - Linda Blachman

[Larry Robinson]

Reversal of Fortune

Somewhere in the crevice between dusk and dawn
just before the grey glow of daylight creeps 
through the blinds, awakening my ache 
for just one more hour of sleep, 
and you

Your hand reaches down from the heavens, 
once again stroking my forehead
from the bridge of my nose to the hairline
smoothing out worry lines etched
since childhood, erasing mental litter,
like waves of the ocean washing the shore
							 
The very shore where we strolled on
our first date, your large hand cradling mine, 
my own hand saying “yes,” while we spoke
in low tones as I’m speaking to you now 
across the divide:

You wouldn’t believe that the country you fled
to find refuge from uniformed men goose-stepping 
through your dreams, insisting 		
in the native tongue you detested			
that you are one of them and there is no escape
								 
That very land that worshipped blond and blue-eyed boys
is now led by a woman, is embracing  
a million desperate dark-skinned people, 			
and the grandchildren of your uncles and aunts
wash swastikas off buildings, place bronze plaques
on sidewalks announcing the truth of their clotted past
lest they forget

While the country where you sought and found asylum – 
remember the woman lifting her torch to the huddled masses – 
has closed its borders in a great forgetting of fake news 
and alternative facts

Did you know what was coming? Is that why, twenty years 
before the buried grenades of terror and hate 
burst forth like fireworks in America’s spacious skies, 
you returned to die in your homeland’s pastoral countryside?


The same countryside abutting the Black Forest 
my family crossed on foot through perilous nights 
to Amsterdam’s port, to the bowels of a ship, 
to my country tis of thee, just before the glass shattered in yours?

By what miracle did we find each other’s hands in the dark,
did I allow the fingers of the enemy to caress away nightmares 
of men in striped pajamas with yellow stars?

And by what quirk of fate are you gone, but the dreams are back 
just before dawn, so I escape through the crack in search of       
hallowed ground, where I can finally kneel at your grave,
sing you to sleep, and rest my head on the grassy mound.   

	- Linda Blachman
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