The Future

My father’s friend told animated stories

in his gruff Polish accent. I listened

with the ear of an informant and dreamed

of a birch grove in falling snow, a boy,

my age, escaping a Nazi firing squad

sprinting through a blizzard to grow up

beside a stealthy, white rabbit hob-tailing

over a frozen pond, reversing course,

sailing to America with a new name.

Ian Golub lives in Maryland with his wife and three sons. He recently completed an MFA in poetry from Bennington College. A lifelong writer who carried poems alongside a career in commercial real estate and finance, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Havik, Penumbra, Red River Review, Connections, and Sky Island Journal. He volunteers as a ski patroller in Pennsylvania.