Forms (#7)

Below is one of the reformatted versions of the poem I mentioned in my previous post. I couldn’t find the one I originally wrote—which had much shorter lines—or any of the otherly lineated versions. I’ve left this as is, even though I'm not happy with it and have no idea why I used the line breaks and spacing that I did. (Why, for example, did I choose to emphasize “then sets off to perch on a neighbouring roof”? Is this just pretentious claptrap?) 

Unlike Bridgett, I wish there were a mathematical formula for creating the perfect poetic line, rather than the more-slippery-than-the-slipperiest-eel/slope art that it is.

Babi Yar*

We need to leave early if we want a seat she tells her daughter Malka, a Russian nesting doll deep within her clothes who waddles and complains. Picking up a suitcase crammed with photographs jewelry lace she tucks some bread inside her coat and asks Malka to wait outside. Opening a window she unlatches the door of Anton’s cage, watches as he flutters between everyday life and the unknown

then sets off to perch on a neighbouring roof. 

She has told Malka that someone will feed Anton but there will be no one, they have all been ordered to leave. Anton will not survive the winter’s cold but she does not want him singing his swan song to an empty room.

Outside families move in one direction, migrating birds that call to one another yet stay in formation, knowing they must leave before it is too late. Funnelled through gates they are caught in a corridor filled with laughter kicks punches. Malka grows smaller and smaller as each layer is removed until she is naked, crying. Malka quiet please be quiet please. They pick her daughter up and like children playing swing her to and fro

then heave her through the air.  

She soars briefly, thin arms and legs flailing – a young bird trying its best to stay aloft – then drops from view.

At the edge of the ravine now she looks into the black holes of machine gun barrels, eyes of her executioners. It is time to let go of thoughts of trains, of your child’s cries

and fly.

* Babi Yar was the site of multiple massacres during World War II. People were lined up at the edge of the ravine and shot, while some (including children) were simply tossed into it and left to die.