In memory of Agnes Sunderland
Watching the news from Israel, I think of you,
smoking yourself to an early death, cigarettes
doing what the Nazis couldn’t.
Our first meeting in a classroom:
you walked in and sat beside me,
elegantly dressed, a bright scarf flamboyantly
twisting around your neck.
It was hot: the rest of us wore shorts and sleeveless shirts,
fanning ourselves with the papers in front of us.
All that hot autumn you kept your jacket on,
nipping out now and then for a puff,
returning to argue once more
with passionate intolerance against
the injustices of our time.
Not until years later,
strolling through the fields close to the farm,
did you roll up your sleeve and show me
the number branded on your arm.
“A present from Auschwitz,” you said.
Even twenty five years after your death,
still in my head I hear your throaty laugh.
– Oonagh Berry
