Sauci Bosner

I walked through the city park.

The wide open fields of green grass

spotted with yellow and orange daffodils

cooled down my summer swollen ankles.

I approached the concrete edged wooden bench

where I always rested on my weekly walks

through this place.

It is August 4 2020 5:15 in the early evening,

perhaps my last walk near to the Rose Garden

before the second corona wave descends upon

Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Speechless

my curiosity

searches for cause

and effect which count

for something remembering

nights when bodies crawled

under barbed wires, crossing borders

into ghettos.  Crying

out for help

in a city rustled into motion

on waves of seamen floating

out of breath between Ijmuiden’s

fishy memories heading

toward safer shores

reminding me I can’t breath

here in Mokum.

Heaviness hung

over this place

shading its skyline

with smells of crushed moth balls

and tear drenched red woolen coats.

Trams passed by wasted horses

pulling wooden caskets.

Quickly put together for this

taken for granted almost occasion.

Another death in the time when

no lives matter

75 years already gone.

Quiet leaks out

everywhere.

The city has succumbed to secrets.

Neighbours gossip, dangling

bags of trash  over pointed

fingers.  Wasted

words as weapons.

All lives matter

some more than others.

The city smells of death

in times when social distancing

should reign.

Fear tempers

masks cover

simple souls calling

I Can Not Breath.

No one reaches

the washed out horizon

in time.  Elders reassure

us: this is not a Holocaust.

I am not so certain.