About Death, They Were Never Wrong
“She shot her daughter
and herself before the Nazis
came,” my mother said
of the woman who made the painting
that hangs now on my yellow
wall. “Her daughter had platinum hair,
a birthmark on one side of her face.”
The woman, “a von something,”
gave it to my grandmother to pay
for cleaning. But about the painting,
she knew little.
Landscape with river and mountains.
A ruin between water and bank,
a person—a woman?—walks
with a basket on her head.
Where was she going? Where has she gone?
The gilt-painted frame is loose.
The canvas looks like it’s been rolled.
Was it given or stolen?
My mother said little about the Holocaust.
Only the danger in listening to the radio,
the Voice of America. One neighbor
taken in the night. Only an envelope,
with his wallet and watch returned.
And her papa, likewise listened.
The canvas is crackled. The palette
umber and shades of brown, blue.
Sunlit clouds. It reminds me of Icarus,
his plunge unseen by those busy with life:
someone walking away from the past,
spotlit on amber ground.
and herself before the Nazis
came,” my mother said
of the woman who made the painting
that hangs now on my yellow
wall. “Her daughter had platinum hair,
a birthmark on one side of her face.”
The woman, “a von something,”
gave it to my grandmother to pay
for cleaning. But about the painting,
she knew little.
Landscape with river and mountains.
A ruin between water and bank,
a person—a woman?—walks
with a basket on her head.
Where was she going? Where has she gone?
The gilt-painted frame is loose.
The canvas looks like it’s been rolled.
Was it given or stolen?
My mother said little about the Holocaust.
Only the danger in listening to the radio,
the Voice of America. One neighbor
taken in the night. Only an envelope,
with his wallet and watch returned.
And her papa, likewise listened.
The canvas is crackled. The palette
umber and shades of brown, blue.
Sunlit clouds. It reminds me of Icarus,
his plunge unseen by those busy with life:
someone walking away from the past,
spotlit on amber ground.
September 2025
Subhaga Crystal Bacon (they/them) is a Queer elder living in rural Washington on unceded Methow land. They are the author of four full length collections of poetry including A Brief History of My Sex Life, forthcoming from Lily Poetry Review Books in 2026; the Lambda Literary Award finalist Transitory, from BOA Editions, 2023; and the chapbook, Surrender of Water in Hidden Places, Red Flag Poetry, 2023, re-released in an extended edition in the summer of 2024.
Art: Ellen June Wright, Diptych #1306, #1509, watercolor on paper