Ghetto Funeral
Followed by his lodge, shabby men stumbling over the
cobblestones,
and his children, faces red and ugly with tears, eyes and
eyelids red,
in the black coffin in the black hearse the old man.
No longer secretly grieving
that his children are not strong enough to go the way he
wanted to go
and was not strong enough.
Copyright Credit: From The Poems of Charles Reznikoff by Charles Reznikoff, Edited by Seamus Cooney. Reprinted by permission of Black Sparrow Books, an imprint of David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc. Copyright 2005 by Charles Reznikoff, Edited by Seamus Cooney.
Source: Poems 1918-1975: The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff (Black Sparrow Press, 1977)