WSR Poetry Corner: “The Unbroken Line”

Reading about the recent sentencing of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, and imagining a congregant who was present during that 2018 mass shooting, I was moved to write this. — Elliott Shapiro

“The Unbroken Line”
By Elliott Shapiro

I’m lying here
staring at the ceiling
tubes in my arms and nose
I’m eighty-six
I’ve been here 68 years
I went to shul this morning with
Nat Goldfarb.

I grew up in Loykove near Krakow
My mother called it a ” kleyner shtetl”
During the summer I dipped my toes in the bubbling creek
It was 1941
I was nine
A Shabbos morning
We were all at shul
I heard the trucks and shouts of many men
A rock broke the window
“Kill the Jews”
In a minute they were inside
They started shooting
My mother pushed me under the bench.

This morning
Nat was reading from the Torah
I saw the man come in
He had a gun
He was shouting
“Jews must die”
Nat looked up at me
He shot Nat
I got under the bench
“Mayne Got”
Even here.

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