How many times do you turn tangled memories

over and over in your mind?

How many half-heard conversations

do you decide were just concoctions of a wishful-thinking

wondering?

Images advance and recede, side-step and sway

out of your vision – and the faces, oh the faces,

they are wreathed in wraith-like wisps of mist,

tantalisingly out of reach.

You fear that you are merely fanciful, creating a castle of cards –

oh, no, not a house! – of four feuding families

that will collapse under the weight of your expectation.

‘Where did I come from?’

‘What blood runs like rivulets in my veins?’

Now, I know. Now, I know.

 

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The lovely Björn was this week’s host over at dVerse, the poet’s pub, where he asked us to use alliteration and consonance in our poems. I used this opportunity to reflect on some news I received this week about a certain part of my family’s history. It answered a great deal of questions that have been floating around in my head for a long time.

If you feel like putting pen to paper, so to speak, head on over to dVerse and join in!

This is “Jewess with Oranges” painted by Aleksander Gierymski.