White Wedding Slippers

At night
mother opened a chest and took out
her white wedding slippers
of silk. Then slowly
daubed them with ink.

Early in the morning
she went inthose slippers
into the street
to line up for bread.
It was minus ten degrees,
she stood
for three hours in the street.

They were handing out
one-quater of a loaf per person.

-Anna Świrszczyńska

(Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan)