Glass: A Journal of Poetry Volume One Issue Three       

Leslie Contreras

Survival in Bucharest
 
         -for Zoly Zamir

Your stepfather burned his boat in Greece
so that the British could not send him back to Romania.
But you, Zoly, burned your own boats, too—
burned the mob on the streets wanting your life, burned
the thickness of their hate,
with the quick movement of a pen forging a passport,
the persistency of a weed in an overgrown garden,
you cut up their plan for you like a thin piece of paper,
and watched the shreds float away in the sky
as you made your way to Palestine,
the voice, still there, getting louder and clearer,
saying You cannot take what is mine.