Auschwitz January, 2002
J. Quinn Brisben
These rails go nowhere now, no ash
Stains New Year's snow, the chimneys spew
No guilty profits bringing dread and cash,
But pain recycles always, stark and new.
Subtract a million if you must, it was,
It is, we are like that, we do it still
To please a power that cannot look, a cause
Enslaving us that never pays the bill.
We try to see the bodies in the bunks,
Spare buttocks on the holes at midnight, hair,
A roomful, back on heads, the shoes on hunks
Of freezing feet, lenses perched, despair.
Some luggage labeled Kafka joins the game,
But no relation, just a common name.
