Pre-Boarding
by Odin Roark

Europe 1944

Gray days.
Steady downpour.
Transportation frenzy.
Escape smothering captured minds.

Plane…

Ticket counter awash with anxious faces.
Children’s crying eyes,
The elderly with stress wrinkled faces
echoing along the boarding area,
“I just want to see my…”

Passenger planes board the fortunate.
US fighters take off and land.

Train stop…

Old passengers and young prisoners peer longingly
out into the rain swept platform
for greetings, hellos, goodbyes.

The hopeful show papers to
brown shirt police and customs agents.

At the trains’ opening, a girl’s stomach, 8 months with baby,
shivers, soaked through.
A boy’s fingers hold a wet match
to her saturated cigarette.

Brown shirts guard, weapons at the ready.
Boy peers at girl.
Girl adds tears to her already drenched face.
“Vill I see you again?