I stand at the mouth of the long
asphalt road in the middle of the cabins
where the ghosts must still line up
every morning to be counted.
I turn my face to the sting of cold
summer rain and wonder if they
thought about how they might die
during moments like this when
hours passed with soldiers checking
their attendance. The lucky died
in bed—metal so their limbs would
freeze to the frame like a
pink tongue to an ice cube.
The air must have hung heavy with the flavor of
flame-kissed flesh smoking from the
vents of the furnaces.
The white walls of the shower
chambers would have stories to tell were their
mouths not filled to the teeth with
the tepid soup of acid-washed
flesh and bone. We escaped
the discomfort
of the weather and I found
myself tracing my fingers across
the black granite counters of the
memorial room, gathering dust full of
the skin cells of those who’d passed
through the shallow, dark rooms.
The backlit counters glowed with the
remnants of thousands of prisoners’ forgotten
identities, the white names decorating
the room like blood splatters
on drywall. Here,
I remember why sometimes
I question whether God has
His hands in this world at all,
why sometimes I think His hands
must be stained.
YOU ARE READING
Baring My Soul (poetry)
PoetryThis is a collection of poems that I've written over the years, some of them are free verse and some rhyme. The inspiration for the poems varies, but most center around some aspect of love, whether it be the joy and the pain of young love or the lov...
