Bread Line.(Poem)(Brief article)

 
BREAD LINE 
 
   Sarajevo Symphony cellist Vedran Smajlovic 
      plays Albinoni's Adagio for victims of the 
        Serb siege of the city, September 1992 
 
   I 
 
   Along a wall cut crumbling as a loaf, 
   brick dust and mortar a blessing of flour 
   on our shoulders, we are a cat-gut queue 
   stretched thin, waiting for what the wind brings 
          down: 
 
   to hold the line through bread-scent and bullets, 
   the Sold Out rumours, and the bang of blood 
   hollow as the tap of a fingernail 
   on an upturned loaf that says it is done. 
 
   And now this jester in a penguin suit, 
   in his chair at the head of the bread line. 
   His cello, his bow, the bow-tie he wears--the 
   cross of a target pinned to his throat. 
 
   The first day he plays with his eyes tight shut 
   to keep from seeing the sniper's baton 
   he knows must fall in a flash, to cut short 
   his slow-rising solo adagio. 
 
   Spare us this day ...