Ghost of my mother, lover in spite of her coloring shades of death in my childhood. I was old before I knew her youthfulness burnt to cinders. She didn’t get to grow old. Son of survival, ask what it cost her to see history’s ashes when her eyes closed. Orphan birthed orphan: the twentieth century tells the same story again and again. I find myself stranded on the same shore, starships I dreamed of now nowhere in sight. Grandparents knew with her what the rails rode on— unwilling ghosts ride bombs down to death. Recall them, refugees of miraculous memory, chain of survival I caught in my teeth. May we next year pass over deadly wombs that breed malevolence. Say Not in my name, her name, refrain from answering murder in death’s own disguise. Who killed my mother? Yet her wild surmise rises unerased to speak painful peace.
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