On Easter Sunday, father goes missing.
I find the bakery door wide open,
and the loaves burning to ashes; the wireless
crushed. Glass, oil, grains on the mud floor,
and the salt jar smashed against the back wall.
State your name for the record.
My name is Marcus Aurelius.
I look everywhere for him.
In the yard and the local bodega.
Up the hill, at the cemetery.
I ask the neighbours.
Nobody saw, nobody heard.
Citizen Aurelius, we have brought
the evidence against your name.
He returns home after a week with the shirt
he is wearing covered in blood. His hair
has turned white. He can barely see me,
says he lost his glasses in a KGB basement.
He never speaks again after this.
.
.
Maria Stadnicka
Montage: Claire Palmer