The train stops
in the middle of the night
at a small station made of fog
and green phosphorescent lights.
The doors open, slamming against
the sides of the train, and the boots
of the border control fill the aisle
as they begin to ask for papers.
It would’ve been September
or October in the exiled season
of your forced march
that you passed here,
cheeks hollowed out
by shadows, recalling
afternoon siestas in Budapest
that portended death
and poppy seed.
For three months you were led across
two countries, walking
until collapsing in exhaustion,
ears caked with blood.
From the vantage point
of the grass, memory wove
a garland around the sun
like a ring of young girls
circling a record player.
Witness to the execution
of other internees at the hands
of their own countrymen
you continued on, beaten
for writing in the small
Serbian exercise book
you kept in your trench coat,
from where you tried to balance humanity
like a pencil on your finger.
They led you to a field
of leafless trees and sketched nooses
in the air, laughing.
One November day in 1944
in a village near the Slovakian border,
shovels were passed around.
In the sky
there were no clouds.

—

Sean Edgley is a northern California native currently residing in Paris, France. Having finished his MFA at the City College of New York this winter, he has been recently published in the anthology Some Stories Are True that Never Happened and Scapegoat Review. He has been an adjunct lecturer at City College and was recently in Seoul for a translation residency at the Literature Translation Institute of Korea.