My sister, my sister
Where is my sister?
I search in vain.
I cannot see her.

Suddenly, like a bullet, like an explosion.
Her look of terror.
Her white skin and her adolescence.
Her way of dancing alone and singing.
Her hair streaming in the sun.
All fades away.
Her eighteen years in a single instant like a flash.
Like a submachine gun firing in my memory.

At times the road leads me
to bootleg whiskey.
A sudden blast.
A bullet at dawn.
A scream of terror.

Translated by: Elizabeth Gamble Miller