I.
Hungary, 1944
A family is in hiding under a house. The youngest, a boy barely two, is the only one to sleep on a bed. The others sleep like well-dressed sardines on the floor—well-dressed, even here, to preserve a little dignity. And under these circumstances, under this ordinary house, he is still a boy like any other boy, eager to be an even bigger boy. But the world around him is so small, the things he longs for are few. “When I grow up,” he points to the floor, “I want to sleep on the big bed with all of you.”
II.
South Dakota, 2016
Just before the election, my brother-in-law showed up at our doorstep in California. He had to get away from his home in the Black Hills for a few days after an incident at his motorcycle repair shop. He was shooting the shit with a customer and the customer said, “I hear they are going to build concentration camps for the Muslims. You believe it? I could probably work there. I might have a hard time putting down the children, but don’t ask me to put down the Muslim dogs. I could never do that. That would be going too far.”
III.
California, 2017
I am not a US citizen. I am afraid to write this poem. I am afraid to record these fears should someone find them and hold them against me and question my loyalty and send me back to my country without my children, without my husband, without everything we have built. I am afraid to say what I think. I am afraid to criticize the Golden King on public record, in private, or even in a whisper, knowing elsewhere someone sighs, “Finally there is a guy in the White House who tells it like it is. Just give him time.”
Sarah Kobrinsky was the 2013-2015 Poet Laureate of Emeryville, CA. She was born in Canada, raised in North Dakota, seasoned in England, and tempered in California. Her poems and stories have appeared in Eleven Eleven, Fjords Review, Magma Poetry, Monkeybicycle, 100 Word Story, *82 Review, among many others. Her collection Nighttime on the Other Side of Everything is forthcoming by New Rivers Press.
