Isaac Babel

In January  of  2018 just before
I turned seventy-two, a 1939
NKVD photograph showed me 
Isaac Babel looked just like 
my father looked at that age: 45.

(My father once told me that
he wrote a few short stories in
Europe before the war, but, he said,
they really weren’t any good,
so he threw them away…)

When Babel was shot, my father
was shot along with him, because
they looked just the same, although
one wrote much better stories
than the other one, much better…

Since my father was shot along
with Isaac Babel (as Isaac Babel)
there was no way he could make 
his contribution to my birth, which
proves I do not exist,  yet I write

Although or since my existence is not 
within the realm of the possible,
I try to give the dead pink tongues
to help dust reclaim an eloquence
it never had in the first place



2018