Cousin Michael by Michael Rosen

There was a wedding,
and we were invited
and, when we got there,
there was a man
who they said was
my father's cousin.
   

This is Michael, they said –
same name as you, hah!

And at one point in the 
wedding, my aunt took 
me to one side and said 
that there was a time 
during the war when 
Michael was a boy,

six,teen or seventeen

no older than you are now, 
she said, and his parents 
said to him that it

wasn’t going to be 
safe where they were
in Poland.

And so, my aunt said, 
his parents put him on 
a train and he never 
saw them again.

Like it always was, 
at that time, when

people told me things 
like this, my aunt just 
shrugged, looked sad 
and said, I suppose 
they died in the camps, 
and I never knew what

that meant – what were 
these camps? Why were 
people taken there?

At the wedding, 
I watched him.

He must have been about 
forty years old then.

In my mind, I thought of him
being the same age

as me, and I imagined 
my parents

saying to me one day: 
Michael, go, don’t stay, 
there are soldiers

and police and they are 
kicking us out of our 
houses and flats –

go, don’t stay.

So they come with me 
to a station and we 
wait for a train and

all the time we are looking 
out for soldiers and

police, but it’s OK, so they 
hug me and kiss me

and I get on the train, 
and stand in the

corridor and wave to them 
through the window,

and I can see them close 
together, waving, and then

there’s a shout and a whistle 
and the train starts to pull off 
and they wave and they wave 
and I wave and I wave

till they’re gone.

And that’s the last I ever see

of them. I never see them again, 
but wherever I go, and whoever 
I’m with, I remember that picture 
of them standing together, 
waving me off, and for the rest

of my life I can’t make any of it 
make sense, that they did that 
thing of making me safe and 
there was nothing they could 
do for themselves. And I think 
again and again of what they 
might have been thinking at 
that moment, as they waved 
and stood close to each other. 
What did they think as they 
lost everything? And later
they were herded together

and taken to a camp, never knowing 
what had happened, never knowing 
why this was happening, never knowing 
what happened to me,

even at the very end

as they were closing their eyes.

And though I smile and walk about 
in the world, I carry this with me 
wherever I am, whoever I’m with, 
and no matter how many times

I try to change it, no matter

how many times I try to get them 
to come with me on the train,

or how many times I get them 
to escape and find me in those

freezing places where I ended up, 
or how many times I imagine 
that I meet them after the War 
is over, and we hug and kiss

and cry, it never happens. 
It never happens. There

is always nothing. Nothing but 
nothing.

But I walk about in the world 
smiling and nodding. I even go 
to weddings, and people smile

at me, even this young man 
with the same name as me,

no older than I was then when 
my parents put me on the train.

And he’s looking at me 
like he’s trying to

read me
like a 
book.