comes when you are waiting
for the shower and disinfection,
and when you reach the bottom of the sink
without clothes, shoes, or even hair.
The call comes when you are baptized
with a number. The numbers told everything.
For they told the world, in particular, how you
refused to let yourself live without its sorrow.
A blessing that comes when you refuse to hear it.
On some mornings it comes in the form of an uncut orange
on the table in the dining room. An offering from Mother Earth.
A gift from the ground. The way cherry blossoms belong
to the world once a year.
*This poem was inspired by the eternal testimony of Primo Levi
George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, essays and letters have appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Havana Times, South China Morning Post, The Buffalo News, and more.
See all his poems on Tea House here.
