Sabbath Morning
Excerpt from the Book of Collected Holocaust Poetry, Unworthy Lives, Published 2004, Pages 56-58
Also Published as a Single Poem in Ripples, 2007 Edition
Copyright © 1998, 2007
Jason Lester Atkins
985 Fleet Drive, #347
Virginia Beach, VA 23454
All Rights Reserved.
We are thirty girls sitting in our shed:
Sitting in a circle: Maria sitting across from me:
Like well dressed little women meeting in the chapel:
We are facing each other in a circle,
watching moving soldiers closing the heavy door:
All is quiet this Sabbath morning
except, the humming engine sound pushing killing gas inside:
My choking paining breath pushing out my chest
in short gasps of gurgling wet:
Swelling my eyes big in sockets
so, our kindly ceiling light becomes a blurring moon:
Maria and I,
choking on the engine's gas,
forcing our final choice of will,
holding our dying minds alive:
Looking into each others eyes,
knowing death is around us everywhere:
Knowing, for a first time,
how quickly time stops:
knowing we are becoming the numbers on our arms:
We are trapped,
like small caged animals going mad:
Crawling, clawing over each other,
stacking ourselves at the door:
Maria on the bottom
flattening down by weighty bodies
of thirty dying girls:
Forcing my eyes wide open,
willing not to die:
I hear my own voice screaming: Why ... Why ... Why ...
Les Atkins Poetry Index Page
Send e-mail to Les Atkins