The Coat 

The girl in a faded black-and-white photo

laughs, with her head tilted, buttons undone

on her military coat.  You look fashionable, Mom,

when was it taken? The girl looks up, her mother frowns.

They took a break from passing bricks, cleaning up

Warsaw streets – tunnels among mountains of rubble.

Brick-by-brick, hand-to-hand, long chains of students.

Sundays, evenings. They found bodies sometimes. She sighs.

I met your Dad rebuilding Warsaw with our bare hands.

But the coat?  I hated this beet-shade monster.

Hideous. Rough. A soldier’s coat from UNRA.

I helped Babcia take it apart, wash the pieces,

dye them – from army green to beet-root.

Fifteen years. When the fabric wore out, she undid the seams,

turned it inside out, sewed the pieces back together

just like her mom showed her. Stitch by stitch. 

Her stockings were hand-sewn, too,

from soldiers’ onuce – long bandages

for wrapping feet in their heavy boots.

Take two, make two seams – Voila! You look like

Marilyn Monroe in “Some Like it Hot!”

She sighs again. Don’t ask,

I’ll never teach you how to sew. 

Asters

 Her mother’s aunt, Ciocia Jadzia works in a kiosk in Oliwa


selling papers and razor blades in a ruined city 


of charcoal buildings and five-year plans 


She hides the best blades for her faithful clients 


in the kiosk on the way to the Cathedral 
 

where angels with puffy wooden cheeks 


triumphantly blow their golden trumpets 

walls and benches shake with the majesty of Bach

the gold-starred ceiling shimmers 


in summer evening cold 

 
The music of the seaside vacation heals the grey hours 


of the girl, sitting in the kiosk, selling matches and tickets 


after Ciocia Jadzia goes home to cook dinner
 
for her silent husband, drunk artist son

 
She works – Uncle Dominic, a proud nobleman 


in a top hat and a black Sunday coat 


walks through Oliwa’s parks 

with his last, prize-winning Holstein cow


grieving the loss of his estates – the life he had had 


before that fateful train ride from the East

 
He still sees the red-roofed manor with a white porch 


bronze oak leaves scattered on the gravel path


silver gray of Lake Świteź 

golden rye fields before the harvest

 
He walks home to rusty bricks pocked by bullet holes,


smoke-dark hallways, and a burst of color

in the courtyard where asters tremble –


a bouquet of fallen stars