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in
collection I'll Be Back
Before You Know It, 2009
Pighog
Press, ISBN 978
-1 -906309 -06 -0
Europa
There was a smell
before I was born.
It
came across fields
dotted
with sows, above yards
where
thin chickens scratched
in
the dust, past cordons
of
pines, scaring out quails.
It
was stronger than the smog
of
Nowa Huta, which eats away
stone
faces and newborn lungs.
How
could you miss it
when
it rose from chimney stacks
along
that flat skyline
or
blew over rivers and broken
telegraph
wires to spread
above
schools and church spires?
Ladies
dabbed Chanel Number 5
on
their fox furs to ward it off —
gents
lit the fattest cigars.
Gents
with made-up eyes, ladies
with
shingled hair and monocles
danced
rumbas and milongas
but
overnight they vanished.
Not
even alcohol or opium
could
dispel it — the smell
stayed
in the air.
Soon
everyone coughed.
Some
politely, some not.
Maria Jastrzebska
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