A MONUMENT
TO A KID OF BUDAPEST,
50 YEARS LATER
You
lie there,
a statue unto yourself,
a girl of fourteen,
a submachine gun
frozen to your heart,
a monument
to death and resurrection.
You lie there,
by the Church of the Immaculate Conception,
riddled with bullets,
sprayed with blood, all innocence deceived.
Hungarian schoolgirl
turned woman warrior,
it is you, and the likes of you,
the Revolution conceived.
Freedom fighter,
with no one to fight for her.
A small body,
with nobody to bury her,
sprinkled with lime,
covered by snow, by time,
unseeing doll’s eyes raging
against Soviet armor,
against tyranny.
You lie there, a relic
on a hill of bone,
frozen in grotesque geometry,
a monument to a people’s bravery.
A monument to man’s inhumanity.
– Peter Hargitai
