(A pantoum from Frankie's on the Divisadero in San Francisco)
	"War and Peace" (aka "Sleeping Woman") by Pablo Picasso

The sign at Frankie's Bohemian Cafe reads: We are 6,303 miles from Prague.
From inside the shadowed corner where I have brambory, rough bread, Pilsner--
much the same way I did in that sleepy Bohemian bordertown of Terezin--
from here I can still almost hear mothers' voices, appoggiaturas on the wind.

From inside the shadowed corner where I have brambory, rough bread, Pilsner,
I think of children painting flowers sprawling meadows, their butterfly skies
and still almost hear from here mothers' voices, appoggiaturas on the wind.
Now we make a study of this, housefronts tattooed in SS occupation brass plaques

and of children painting flowers sprawling meadows, their butterfly skies,
quilts' large folds feather-soft daily airing our sins across an opened window ledge.
Now we make a study of this, housefronts tattooed in SS occupation brass plaques,
across the way a Camp's mass grave's numbered markers beds down in roses,

quilts' large folds feather-soft airing our sins across an opened window ledge,
the gallows wreathed in candles, slips of prayers tucked beneath rings of stones.
Across the road a grave of numbered markers beds down below a blanket of roses
for ones who hung at the Gate of Death. I have walked camp tunnels from the cells

to the gallows wreathed in candles, slipped prayers beneath the rings of stones,
jumping at my own shadow darting behind and before me, at how horror twists it,
for those who hung at the Gate of Death. I walked camp tunnels from the cells,
dark angels taunting me with voices and plaques, quilts and roses, butterfly skies,

jumping at my own shadow darting behind and before me, at how horror twists it--
the same way I did neatly squared walkways in the sleepy bordertown of Terezin--
dark angels taunting me with voices, plaques, quilts and roses, butterfly skies,
and the sign at Frankie's Bohemian Cafe reads: We are 6,303 miles from Prague.

Credit: Comstock Review 15:1, Syracuse, NY

AUTHOR'S NOTE: "I have seen Terezin"

Terezin or Theresienstadt, an 18th century Czechoslovakian fortress and village outside Prague, was a ready-made concentration camp and ghetto as well as housing for Nazis who passed it off as a model Jewish settlement.  Terezin was a waystation to Nazi trials, jails, penitentiaries, and other camps. The ìGate of Deathî is where prisoners had to pass on their way to execution, often over fifty at a time. Some 10,000 victims are buried in the Terezin cemetery upon which roses bloom. Terezin held many children (only 100 of 15,000 survived) whose artwork, displayed in the ghetto museum, inspired Celest Rispanti's I Never Saw Another Butterfly and upon which many plays have been based and performed by children worldwide.

Bio: Andrena Zawinski originally hails from Pittsburgh, PA but has made her home in Oakland, CA where she now lives and teaches college writing. She is a San Francisco Bay Area co-chair of Poets for Peace and compiler of their forthcoming anthology from Chapiteau Press. Her own full collection of poetry, Traveling in Reflected Light, was released by Pig Iron Press as a Kenneth Patchen competition winner. Her latest chapbook, Zawinski's Greatest Hits 1991-2001, was issued by Pudding House as part of their invitational and archival series.  Zawinski is also Feature Editor at PoetryMagazine.com

http://www.poetrymagazine.com/zawinski

Contact Andrena Zawinski at comments@moondance.org