In a little town in Paraguay,
where peach rose dusks rot into the night -
a white and terracotta ranch sits on the Ypacaraí
where an old man waits out the end of his life...

His hair had been blonde -
but his eyes still hold blue,
before Paraguay -
in a past long gone -
two paragons of extreme virtue.
Emboldened then by the sculpted Aryan face,
his ascension in political file,
he used the might of his wrath
to ensure the might of his race
would raise their flag atop the human pile.

From ascension to Asunción -
how the mighty fall -
then smuggled on further inland
to where he remains waiting between these walls...
for, in utter despair, agents of Israel
and
in dreams, the next Reich
or
just a young, dunkelhäutig servant girl
to get him through the night...

Sometimes he wakes up fast -
and at his window it would seem
innumerable gaunt Jews stare in through the glass,
mouths wide - about to scream.
He sits up sharply,
soaked wet with sweat
right through
and sees at once they're gone
but every sound distorts and brews...
his shameful weakness steams to white hot rage
at all he lost
at all they've won
that he is here in
Paraguay
like a coward, on the run.

Putting on his dressing gown,
he feels his way
down, down
deep
down
the stairs
twists the steel handle of the vault,
when it opens - stands and stares...
the Iron Cross
the letters
the photos
and his boots
his overcoat
the leather gloves
the diary
the rapture of his youth.

It washes over him this way,
he's overcome with chills-
of how it made him feel those days...
and how it makes him still.

Copyright Yafeu-Khamisi Rodway-Brown