Ghetto Song

When the children
in Theresienstadt
sang about sweets
they hadn’t seen for years
their empty hands held them
till they stopped singing.

One day fifty years later
three German children
sat singing softly,
in a bus on their way home
from school.

We listened, hearing the past.

Until they entered, loud,
groping for coins
sneers toward the children.
They came torquing past us
in search of space enough
to sprawl across and expand.

Nothing remains
of the makeshift stage
in Theresienstadt
where the children sang
before departing.


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