First Edition features new original works by Northern California Jewish writers. Appearing the first issue of each month, it includes a poem and an excerpt from a novel or short story.
The Last Holocaust Survivor in America
by adrienne wolfert
In the year two thousand and forty-five
to commemorate something
they weren’t sure which
or when
or if it was myth
or mattered, they searched out
the last Holocaust survivor
in America.
He lived on a mountain
in Colorado
where they found him
prone on a wicker chaise
covered with native blankets.
Western sunsets
spread across his lap,
his arm extended
blue skies over prairies,
his hair
was snow
on the crest
of a purple mountain
He was a painter.
“Could he tell them,”
they asked,
“The answer to
a hundred-year-old
question?
Did it happen?”
The sunken rivers
of his eyes
indicated
the walls
where hung
the work of his survival.
Experts all
they studied
the canvasses,
oil acrylic,
howl on howl…
They shook their heads
denying clues,
negating meaning
no human dared
discover.
Adrienne Wolfert, 90, is a poet, essayist and novelist. She is a former columnist for the Connecticut Jewish Ledger and was twice awarded the Connecticut Commission on the Arts’ Artist’s Prize. Her recent work includes the novel “The Twelve O’Clock Bus” and the anthology “7/Day World, Quick Reads for Busy People” (2014), in which this poem appeared. She lives in San Francisco.