Mauthausen

The birds seem to still recognize the smell of death
They circle the gate beside the wailing wall.
Their cries echoes of the prisoner’s screams delayed for sixty years,
Now bouncing off of the wall and into my chest
Sucking the air out like the gasses from the shower heads
Until I too am a walking skeleton—lost in the shadow behind me.
The rocks chip away at my feet
As I stumble towards the quarry,
A pile of rubble
Built on the backs of the men imprisoned here.
The field to the right is full of wildflowers whispering promise,
beckoning me to believe in the goodness of the world.
To the left is the cliff that gave the men a way out.
A one way flight past the starvation and pain.
Les escalairs de la mort.
I wonder which decision was harder—
choosing life or choosing death.

The crematorium is where even the men break down,
Sinking into a corner and covering their faces,
Looking up over their fingers
At the browning roses
and candles
that mark the place
where three or four bodies
were placed on top of each other
and reduced to plaques and pictures on the wall.
A child has drawn a picture in blues and reds
that looks just like the men—a body all curled up—and hung it up in the corner by the window.
It is all of the people who have left themselves in that room,
Crying silently in the corner.