Bottle on the Bookcase

When I went to see him, he wouldn’t tell me any of this. When he went out of the room, his wife said 'He can’t bear to talk about it'. When he came back into the room, he said: 'Tell him the story about my cousin Leosia.' So they told me the story about cousin Leosia.

When the Nazis came in the west, Leosia pretended to be a Christian. She put a crucifix round her neck, and then she fetched her grandmother's brooch, and took the diamonds off it. She took the soles off the heels of her shoes, put the diamonds inside the heels, and put the soles back on. She thought, if there were going to be any problems, she would be able to sell them. Then, she went west into Germany.

In Germany, she worked in a factory. No one ever found out that she was Jewish. At the end of the war, she couldn't face going back to Poland. Her parents, all her friends, and all her relations had been taken away to the camps and killed. She went to Israel to find her brother Naftali. She told him how she had lived right through the war with diamonds in the heels of her shoes. 'I always knew, if ever I got into difficulty, I could have sold them. And maybe, paid someone to help me. And, here they are.' she said. The very diamonds themselves.

And Naftali said: 'Where did you get the diamonds from, Leosia?' And Leosia said: 'From our grandmother's brooch.' So Naftali said: 'Listen carefully, Leosia. Many years ago, our grandmother wrote to me. She said that grandfather's business wasn't doing too well, and so to help out. She had taken the diamonds off a brooch, and put in glass ones instead, and sold off the diamonds. She didn't tell anyone about it. But she wrote it to me, to get it off her chest. You went through the whole war, with nothing more than bits of glass in the heels of your shoes.'"

Michael Rosen, untitled poem from Carrying the Elephant, 2002.

[Transcript:

I swerve. There are humps and pot-holes. If I try

to drive straight over a hump, it scrapes the bottom

of the car. So it’s best to turn to the left or right so

that I take the hump at an angle. Not face on. The

pot-holes are harder. They hide, looking like ripples

in the road-surface, but as I get near they yawn.

My wheel rolls straight in, hits the far side and the

whole car jolts. What’s hard, is that the holes are often

on the down-side of the humps. So even as I dodge

the hump I land in the hole. Sometimes I spot

the hole on the other side of the hump and at the very

moment I’ve worked out how I’ll avoid it, I find

myself going straight over the hump, dead centre,

and it’s scraping the bottom off some vital out-of-sight

When I am dead, carve this upon my stone: Here lies a woman, fit root for flower and tree, Whose living flesh, now mouldering round the bone, Wants nothing more than this for immortality, That in her heart, where love so long unfruited lay A seed for grass or weed shall grow, And push to light and air its heedless way; That she who lies here dead may know Through all the putrid marrow of her bones The searing pangs of birth, While none may know the pains nor hear the groans Of she who lived with barrenness upon the earth.

Michael Rosen, untitled poem from Carrying the Elephant, 2002.

[Transcript:

It didn't work out the way it's supposed to. The four

of us on a platform. We were supposed to have

given up. We should have learnt that being

unconvinced is what counts for wise. But we're

here. Shocked again. Coming out of our kitchens

to say, if nothing else, everyone here is sick of the

age-old cruelties. We should have noticed that

history ended but we got distracted by some

massacres. So we're here again. It didn't work out

Travelling in a comfortable car Down a rainy road in the country We saw a raggedy fellow at nightfall Signal to us for a ride, with a low bow. We had a roof and we had room and we drove on And we heard me say, in a grumpy voice: no We can’t take anyone with us. We had gone on a long way, perhaps a day’s march When suddenly I was shocked by this voice of mine This behaviour of mine and this Whole world.

In a parlor containing a table And three chairs, three men confided Their inmost thoughts to one another. I, said the first, am miserable. I am miserable, the second said. I think that for me the right word Is miserable, said the third. Well, they said, it's quarter to two. Good night. Cheer up. Sleep well. You too. You too. You too.