Leaving Dubno – (i.m. Rutka Laskier)
When I wake, the dream is real,
pillow cases on the window, grey
invaders shout ‘steh auf, schmutz.’
Daddy, sleeping in his warm red pool.
The tears of gravel that pour
from his punctured eye, will pave
laboured miles through snow
and woods: the cattle train,
the sledge-line, from Dubno
to Belzec. And when I get there,
I will swallow: brown transparent soup,
stone-black bread, strips
of potato peel, beaten turnip,
in hope that I may lay down and rest
in my new pyjamas, safe
from the fighting and fleeing,
behind a barbed wire fence,
in a shed of beds that seems too empty.
- Clifton Redmond
Photograph by Aine O'Hara