Anna Swir, who was the only daughter of a poor painter in Poland, and who once was 60 minutes away from execution, writes:
For the last time I wash the shirt
of my father who died.
The shirt smells of sweat. I remember
that sweat from my childhood,
so many years
I washed his shirts and underwear,
I dried them
at an iron stove in the workshop,
he would put them on unironed.From among all bodies in the world,
animal, human,
only one exuded that sweat.
I breathe it in
for the last time. Washing this shirt
I destroy it
forever.
Now
only paintings survive him
which smell of oils.
Anna Swir, you take my breath away with this poem. The sweat, the washing, the fierce physicality of your writing.
I see my father again, for but a moment.