You were four
when you fled
to the mountains
with your dad
when you hid with the goats
and the pecking chickens
you were twenty
when they said
no girls go
back
to the kitchen where you slept

you were
forty when graphite
rained down
from Pripyat
and the counters
chirped
like birds around your head
don't you wish
you were somewhere else instead?

you were
fifty years old
when you upped
and fled
to the blue jean capital:
hollywood and burger king
ninety
when we took you
from brooklyn
where you'd lived ever
since
then

you don't to run
you don't have to
flee
you'll be taken
care of
and guided gently

to the place
where the beard
says the prayers
you never learned
as a little girl
where across the pew
sits your husband
jet black hair
and twenty two

where behind him sits
your clan
before
they were ash in poland
and the book
from the front
glows
lightly