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Birkenau


Red shoes
Worn on the heel
From walking many miles
Who knows where
My only link
To her.
I don't know her name
I never will.
But her shoes
To this day
Touch my soul.
They're in a pile
Of other shoes
Stacked high
Behind glass.
Shoes of people
Who are dead and gone.
A memorial to hatred.
The pile of shoes
Sits across the room
From a pile of eye glasses
And luggage
And rugs
Made from human hair.
Yet oddly
It's the shoes
That are alive.
They bear her tread.
There are names
There are pictures
There are numbers.
But it's the shoes
That she wore
Stumbling
Crying
Fearful at the end.
It's the shoes
That tear my soul
Because she walked in them
Until the end.

- April 29, 2003

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