Max Reif’s most recent poem to appear here was “Leaving Oaxaca” (August 2019). 

Homage to the Mexican Muralists
(Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City)
By Max Reif

I cannot know the nightmare
out of which
the world was waking
as I was taking
birth.

These artists try
to tell. They tell.
But I am deaf to hear.

I can’t descend
to that deep floor
of suffering, where
there isn’t any sky.

Somehow,
they witnessed
and endured.
I take in what
I can.