two menorahs loosen

memory's chains

and restore the past

again

 

here in my head

a dark star's velvet scream

is heard but

never seen

 

leave  the poor

as they were before

footsteps in the snow 

 

Paris 1942

the Gestapo

arrested you

another wandering Jew

they perform another round-up,

and a seemingly innocent Jew,

Paul Leon,  you, just visiting,

to sort out Joyce's papers

is tossed into a Mercedes

hard,

 

Joyce's terse leery words

echo

in your head

'I am dead, I am dead'

 

and you were murdered by the Nazis

in: April 1942

another exterminated Jew in Auschwitz

 

and so you think you tell

heaven from hell?