©Peter Edler 2007

time travel

Königsberg -Insterburg -Gumbinnen -

small town in Ostpreussen

where I watched

German soldiers ride into Russia

with shining eyes

singing

on trains festooned with birch garlands

and come back

swathed in bloody bandages

moaning

with eyes shining

from what they called Baghdad fever

as if returning to 1944

from 2007