War's End

children of Breslau
drag suitcases behind their mothers
watch slips os paper floating to earth.
they fall like snow
their message echoing across
time, "Germans, surrender now!
Nothing will happen to you."

800,00 people
wait just outside the bombers'
reach
too late to escape
they clog the train stations,
their babies in strollers filled
with pots and pans
while the men keep watch
from church steeples
machine guns in hand
benign protection against
the 90.000 souls
who perished in the cold.