The day was called September the First.
The kids were off to school now it was autumn.
The Germans raised the red-and-white striped
barrier of the Poles, and the droning tanks,
like fingernails on silver-foil for chocolate,
flattened the cavalry.
+++++++++++++++++++++Top up your glasses
with vodka for the lancers where they stand
at the front of the assembly of the dead
when the register is taken.
+++++++++++++++++++++Still on the wind
the birches rustle and the leaves are falling
on the discarded caps of the uhlans,
on the roof of a house without the noise of children,
where the clouds are crawling with a rumbling sound
across the rolled-up windows.