The Dresden Amen by Mark J. Mitchell

Dresden, Saxony Germany February 1945

It’s hot. It’s Valentine’s. Still her hands and face

are warm as that summer in Trieste when

her skin burned. She walks into an erased

city. There’s nothing standing and white ash

drifts where snow should be. There’s an awful noise.

She knows people scream and cry. Their open

mouths show her. But a dark wind kicks up trash

that two nights ago were friends. It sings, loud

and wild overhead—as if gargoyles, once poised

on St. Josef, had learned to chant sad psalms

and demons joined in. A fierce yellow cloud

swirls above flattened plaster. Lath. Crushed stone.

She walks under hot light. She knows her home’s

here. Suddenly, it’s quiet as a bomb.

It’s not Valentine’s! It’s two days past, more

maybe. She treads on. Bones and china crack

under her last shoes. She dreamed this before.

Everyone dreams fire when bombs fall all night.

There’s a rise—she sees something intact, real—

A piano bench. Upright. Unpainted black

walnut. White ash and dust. Nothing in sight

but this safe, wooden seat. She has no choice—

she climbs to it and sits down. Her wrists

high, supple. There’s no music, no voice

as her fingers play Isolde’s death on air.

Eyes fixed, she knows she’ll take this bench elsewhere,

her prize. She’ll play Wagner, arranged by Liszt.

Mark J. Mitchell  has been a working poet for 50 years. He’s the author of five full-length collections, and six chapbooks. His latest collection is Something To Be from Pski’s Porch Publishing. He’s fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Dante, and his wife, activist Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco.