The image is the real character of the poem

He must have been from Czechoslovakia.
His sister had died.
He took a liking to my mother—
He approached her and said, “listen:
You want to get out of here?
When I leave I can get you out of here
and you can come and live”—
He offered to take her out of there.
She could become his sister,
use her papers, take on her identity, live with family.
Even though he liked her, it wasn’t sexual.
She would be like his sister who passed away.
Maybe he was a good person.
But to her credit
she decided not to go
because it wasn’t worth it.
I don’t know if she’d be happy anyway
because she was with all the people she knew
people from her town
she would have been totally isolated hiding there
and what would she do all day she’d rather work.
Anyway she said no
Because she knew:
If somebody disappeared they would make everybody—
If somebody disappeared they would just go nuts there
and they would torture everyone
to find out if they knew how this person disappeared
but they might not have even known
and they wouldn’t have believed them
so they would have made everyone’s life miserable there.
She didn’t go for that reason.

*American poet and academic. Director of The Bridge literary center.