Communist Cremation in Prague, 1986
Up from the subway exit escalate
Miléna Bilchek and her children.
Streetcar Number Eight, spitting sparks,
chortles to a stop.
Black as Bohemian coal,
a taxi sticks
half into the boulevard.
A butcher truck shrills its horn.
Separating asphalt from marble,
the cemetery wall extends, grey and soot,
to Wenceslas Square,
except where broken
by a bough of poplar
or a person.
A fiddler is leaning against the wall.
At the cobbled courtyard,
a flower girl droops with soberness,
addresses a wreath
to somebody's uncle in a stiff suit.
"Józef," it will speak.
This she does for a living.
Blue decorated military,
tracing cobbles with their toes,
mingle with white women
in black hose.
They wait their turn.
A Westerner
in Nike shoes
hides chocolate between his teeth.
The taste is bitter sweet.
From the crematorium
drains a flow of mourners.
The hall is empty.
It is finished.
There is no smell.
A chime sounds,
then the word: "Bilchek."
It is time.
Men strong and alive
enter the hall, touching
women strong and alive.
A comrade tells who Bilchek was.
The Slavic brotherhood and sisters
take effort
to stand within their shoes
and feel the "Internationale."
The air has heft; the organ heaves.
A curtain draws
gently between the lives
of civil servants
and the waiting
fire.
Holocaust of Józef Bilchek ignites.
The family stumbles into the open air
as a column of Bohemian soot rises.
Patches of random sky begin
to pull the carbon apart:
less black, more blue,
cleared by the wind.
The smoke is gone.
To transport persons,
a taxi sticks
half into the boulevard.
Number Eight streetcar pauses
For one more passenger.
Down to darkness
the subway entrance rolls.
Miléna Bilchek wipes her cheek.
- Richard Hacken