17.8.16 (#228) Locked Away by Myron Lysenko

ships and aircraft exchanged bombs

as the cost of bread kept rising

my mother caught a train to another country

and became a teenage labourer there

my parents raised four children

and buried two of them in separate cemeteries

my father had to run away from home

because his father wanted him to become a bootmaker

the Germans looked handsome in their uniforms
but Ukrainians were desirable in their embroidered shirts

my mother always liked to sell things

and it gave her extra pleasure when it was food

my father had one room and when he was a teenager
he filled it with books and turned it into a library

my parents married and caught a ship to Australia
and the soldiers who weren’t buried were locked away