Title: Poland

Author: Jenny Bornholdt

In: Sport 6: Autumn 1991

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, April 1991, Wellington

Part of: Sport

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Sport 6: Autumn 1991

I

I.

On the night train to
Gdansk a woman travels
with a kitchen sink.
Young Polish people laugh
over the phrase book—
  Are you free tonight?
  May I have this dance?
  Can I take you home?

It would be difficult
and expensive so we
take the offer of a ride
in a small Polish car made
of particle board, run
on diesel, home
to a house with invisible
bedrooms where the father
—a surgeon— makes
breakfast, washes cutlery
as if it were
surgical implements

*

They say our home is
your home but we do not
recognise the furniture.

*

page 28

Wake to the sound of
Poland and without knocking
another anniversary
comes through the door to
shake your hand. Here's
the ocean to commemorate
the start of World War II.
Mass at the shipyard for
ten years of Solidarity.
This street means the
death of six men and they
ran for their lives.
This door a man passed
barefoot on his way home
in the snow after giving
his shoes to a dead man
for burial.

*

Marry and
remember the dead
with flowers.

*

People grow up out
of the ground. When
the bells sound
it is their hearts
ringing out through
the country.