Wallenberg

They made a stamp for him that matched his years
with first-class cents, but now he’s been replaced.
No one can mail a letter with his face.
Five decades lost: some claim he still appears

in Russian prisons; he must be alive!
But they say he died quickly, that a fool
who whispers his survival is too cruel.
His overburdened heart, at thirty-five,

gave out–no Russian blade to parse his lungs,
nor Stalin bullets needed to make peace.
And no call need be made for the release
of men dead half a century. The young

find him outdated, worthless as his stamps,
and call the suburbs concentration camps.