Agnieszka Tworek

TV during Martial Law

From my bedroom’s doorway on tiptoe, I peek into the hallway
mirror that reflects the TV screen from the living room—
crowds marching, then fleeing, surrounded by smoke and sirens,
dragon-green cars flooding them with water and gas, people climbing
out of this rectangular box and the framed glass, now running
through our tiny apartment, stumbling, falling, running away, hiding
in the drawers I opened for them and in cupboards, under the table
while walls around me tremble. Sleepwalking, I dress the wounds
of the chairs, the broken leaves of potted plants, even put a band
aid on the mirror itself to compensate it for having to witness
so much hurt. The next morning my feet barely fit my mother’s heels.
The night before I was six.

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Agnieszka Tworek was born in Lublin, Poland. She was educated at the University of Chicago and at Yale University. Her poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, Rattle (Poets Respond), Anthropocene and in other journals. She lives on Staten Island.