Burbank, California

By Allison Burnett

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His friends are dying one by one,
Last summer two; this autumn three.
He traipsed them up to sunny hills
And watched them buried six feet deep.

The first, a Russian Jew named Claire,
Whose family fled the Nazi flame.
She couldn’t wait to flee New York,
To bob her nose and fix her name.

Here, palm trees vanquished memory,
The sunshine bleached her blood of grief.
Stark images of ancient flight
Were thrown in sepia-toned relief.

She found a job, she bought a car.
She hugged John Garfield at a dance.
She botched three lines in ’56
In some improbable romance.

She dreamed a life and then she passed,
Last June of cancer at the bone.
No flashing race through crowded streets.
She died anesthetized at home.

The cemetery sun was mild.
The traffic sounded tolerably.
She sank into the Sinai lawn
Without familial eulogy.

My friend does not lament her end.
He says he understands it all,
That holocausts conclude this way,
Between the ghetto and a mall.


-- Allison Burnett