There was a wedding,

and we were invited

and, when we got there,

there was a man

who they said was

my father's cousin.

   

This is Michael, they said –

same name as you, hah!

And at one point in the 

wedding, my aunt took 

me to one side and said 

that there was a time 

during the war when 

Michael was a boy,

six,teen or seventeen

no older than you are now, 

she said, and his parents 

said to him that it

wasn’t going to be 

safe where they were

in Poland.

And so, my aunt said, 

his parents put him on 

a train and he never 

saw them again.

Like it always was, 

at that time, when

people told me things 

like this, my aunt just 

shrugged, looked sad 

and said, I suppose 

they died in the camps, 

and I never knew what

that meant – what were 

these camps? Why were 

people taken there?

At the wedding, 

I watched him.

He must have been about 

forty years old then.

In my mind, I thought of him

being the same age

as me, and I imagined 

my parents

saying to me one day: 

Michael, go, don’t stay, 

there are soldiers

and police and they are 

kicking us out of our 

houses and flats –

go, don’t stay.

So they come with me 

to a station and we 

wait for a train and

all the time we are looking 

out for soldiers and

police, but it’s OK, so they 

hug me and kiss me

and I get on the train, 

and stand in the

corridor and wave to them 

through the window,

and I can see them close 

together, waving, and then

there’s a shout and a whistle 

and the train starts to pull off 

and they wave and they wave 

and I wave and I wave

till they’re gone.

And that’s the last I ever see

of them. I never see them again, 

but wherever I go, and whoever 

I’m with, I remember that picture 

of them standing together, 

waving me off, and for the rest

of my life I can’t make any of it 

make sense, that they did that 

thing of making me safe and 

there was nothing they could 

do for themselves. And I think 

again and again of what they 

might have been thinking at 

that moment, as they waved 

and stood close to each other. 

What did they think as they 

lost everything? And later

they were herded together

and taken to a camp, never knowing 

what had happened, never knowing 

why this was happening, never knowing 

what happened to me,

even at the very end

as they were closing their eyes.

And though I smile and walk about 

in the world, I carry this with me 

wherever I am, whoever I’m with, 

and no matter how many times

I try to change it, no matter

how many times I try to get them 

to come with me on the train,

or how many times I get them 

to escape and find me in those

freezing places where I ended up, 

or how many times I imagine 

that I meet them after the War 

is over, and we hug and kiss

and cry, it never happens. 

It never happens. There

is always nothing. Nothing but 

nothing.

But I walk about in the world 

smiling and nodding. I even go 

to weddings, and people smile

at me, even this young man 

with the same name as me,

no older than I was then when 

my parents put me on the train.

And he’s looking at me 

like he’s trying to

read me

like a 

book.