In the closing
montage of the film
My Kiev Precincts
the village goats trot
backward into the
main street with their
chopped-off heads back
on again, the nipples
bleed in reverse and
reattach to the mother's
breasts, the cantor's tongue
reconnects and he
finishes the prayer
over wine—the raped girl
stops shaking, the glass
in her cut face is
a green bottle again,
the ladle returns to
her hand dipping into
a broth—the wood they
boarded-over the windows
and doors of the filled-up
temple before they torched
it returns back to the
table, returns back to
the cart and the door,
returns to a pickle
barrel, returns to a
large puppet with a knife
in its boot for the next
time—the re-circumcised
are de-circumcised, the
blood unsprays from the
wall—the stomped unconscious
appear to be kissing
the boot bottoms as they
arch back from the raised legs
of two men rigidly
balanced, their laughter untwists
back into their mouths—and the
rooster nailed through the eye
onto a post with the carved
village name drops down and
starts to fan his wings around
a hen with hot eyes, as
though never interrupted,
and the hen’s wings toss
back the fire set to the
thatched roof, which
reassembles out of
the ashes, which unburn
the roof thatch, which begins
to barely vibrate from
the closer pounding
of the men, of the horses.
Doren Robbins
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-kiev-precincts-pogrom-holocaust-poem/
