This is the poem I intend to read tomorrow, if there's time at the mic.
The Smile
Against my will,
my spirit unspools
Backwards, backwards
into our bloody past,
as only a soul
can: spectral, dim
absorbent.
I hate this memory,
the smell of blood & dirt,
the taste of iron in the soil,
I feel again
the burning weight
of a Pink Triangle
on my chest.
Distract yourself
by counting your ribs again,
but oh my darling
don’t watch them lead
the love of your life
to be “cleansed” in Zyklon B.
Oh I can’t do this,
please let me forget
this past life,
I don’t want to remember
Majdanek, please stop your ears
from hearing the squelching
sound of boots
as the echter männer
march past you
not seeing another
broken queer
sobbing
in the bloodmud,
they can’t hear
the keening, the broken cries
that escape your throat,
like desperate animals,
killing themselves
to get free.
I lift my eyes
because I love you,
because I must Look
& oh how calm you are
they don’t push or pull you,
no my God
they never
broke you, bless you.
With your head held high
you quick turn away from
the long line of corpses
& I’ll never love you more
because you are using your
last moments on earth
to find me, see me,
so you can smile at me.
& that calms me,
quiets me,
as you knew it would.
You are helping
me to be ready
when they come.
I’ll think of you,
I won’t cry,
I promise you’ll be
so proud of me,
as I stand,
no longer another
emaciated joke
& proudly will I walk
to be with you again.
I miss you so much
I can’t think of eating,
so I give
my bread to Elijah
but it doesn’t matter
because the very next day
they come:
Stern, forceful, blunt.
It is only because of you
that I stand on my own.
I am strong because
I walk with your arms
around me. Outside now,
eyes dazed by the light,
I’m in my own long line
of men & women, many
who are wrong like me.
I think of the moment
I first laid eyes on you,
sipping steaming tea
from a rough clay mug,
reading Fichte with
a faint smile around
the corner of your lips.
I make my way inside
“the place with the showers”
& we are all crammed,
crushed together
for a bath–a bath!
Because suddenly
they care about lice?
From behind me the sound
of the clanging steel door,
& many of us are too hungry
too tired, too weak
to push or cry or scream.
From above now, a rain
of blue crystals.
Time warps,
seconds melt,
then: my God, my lungs!
my lungs, my God!
They are trying to send us
back to Sodom &
I am angry! I am sad,
there’s a taste in my mouth
that I can’t explain,
and a gray light
at the edges of my eyes.
Be brave, love,
brave enough
to realize that
these are your last moments
but you can use them
to be like him.
So turn,
you beautiful wreck,
before your eyes go dark
yes, oh angel, there you go,
look up & across–
now you’ve found her,
the young woman
with the yellow star
who sat with you
as you wept all night,
her skeletal hand in yours,
she didn’t ask, she knew.
Now, David, now, quick!
before you cannot meet
her sunken black eyes–
& oh thank you, thank you God
she’s looking back,
Now, David: Smile
& she can’t ask why
from across the room,
but she knows
because she smiles too
& not just at me, Alojzy
She’s smiling back at you.
From PSALMS FOR THE QUEER
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