History Teacher in the Warsaw Ghetto Rising, by Evangeline Peterson

The schoolmaster once known as

Umbrella Feet

unfolds his six foot length

of gangling bone



and, mild as usual,

blinks -- his bi-focals

having gone the way of his pipe

and his tree-shaded study

and his wife Charlotte --



jacket flapping, as usual,

carpet slippers treading

rubble of smashed cellars,



holding his rifle uncertainly

as if he thought it irrelevant

-- as indeed it is --



advances steadily into the

glare of the burning street



leading his scattered handful of

scarecrow twelve-year-olds



towards the last ten minutes of

their own brief history.