Nocturne on the Danube Promenade
        In Budapest, 60 sculpted pairs of iron shoes stand along the Danube promenade...a
        testament to the thousands of Jews who were executed there by Arrow Cross
        militiamen during the winter of 1944—45.

Forgive us—
the crack-addicted
hooker who stumbles
along the promenade,
the corpulent street vendor
who bellows at passersby,
the lovers
with no thought
save each other and
the star-flung sky,
and me,
who comes empty-handed
to sit beside
these rusted iron shoes
that, tonight,
pool with votive light,
softened wax
taking on the contour
of vanished flesh,
the ghost-shape of prayers
whispered in the white breath
of winter, 1944
as the guilty
of nothing,
man/woman/woman/child,
linked hands
along the breakwall,
stepped from the familiar harbor
of their shoes,
the sole thing of value
to the Arrow Cross guards
who only lowered their rifles
in the frost-singed dusk
after scarlet bloomed
mid-back and mid-back
and
sometimes
the elegant taper
at the confluence
of neck and shoulder,
an infernal bouquet
dropped into the pallbearer
current
as crows lifted,
black-hymned
along the embankment,
while spent casements
hissed and spat
on the frozen flagstone—
and the river,
knowing nothing
of its burden,
carried on
toward the sea:
the frigid moon
threw down
its stolen light,
a wreath of bone
adrift
on the unquiet surface.

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Copyright © 2021 Frank Paino All rights reserved
from Main Street Rag
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission