Been there eyes

stare down history

wrinkled hands speak. 

 

Noemi stands erect

hundreds listen.

 

at twenty two

she stood in line, her

dress taken from

another gassed.

 

If she falls,

she’ll be hauled away

like a block of wood.

 

She faints

three others risk

the shells of

their lives

and hold her up.

 

Why did you help she later asks?

You were nice to us they say.

​

***

​

entering Auschwitz

josef mengele’s

ghostly white glove

looms ahead

 

points left for her

right for mother,

grandmother,

and little sister

​

***

​

She speaks to German

exchange students.

Tell all who will listen,

I harbor no hate

 

She naively asks a guard

Where are my loved ones?

 

pale arm points

to smoken skies,

dark showers

silently drifting down

 

Years silenced her

choked memory’s cries.

 

I was once in their prison

because there was hatred

in my heart..

 

pork roast guard

gave sterility broth

said eat it or die

like a gunshot

 

Somehow she wore

a bulletproof vest.

Fourteen descendants attest.

 

She sat on an assembly line,

forced to make bombs

for use on her own

and miswired them all.

​

***

​

death march

end of war near

 

several young girls

slip into the woods

one at a time

 

came upon an American

soldier, who says

You are free

​

***

​

Many years later...

Noemi goes back to the camp,

touches bricks that

feel like bombs

where her loved ones died.

 

Sees grandmother who

impossibly snuck Sabbath

candles on the death train.

 

Little sister who

never got to be…

 

Mother, who knew she'd

never see her husband again.

 

Tells us,

look evil in the eye

speak your truth.

 

Slowly drinks

a glass of water

we all taste with her.