“Write it down. Write it. With ordinary ink

on ordinary paper: they weren’t given any food,

they all died of hunger. All. How many?

It’s a large meadow. How much grass

per head? Write down: I don’t know.

History rounds off skeletons to zero.

A thousand and one is still only a thousand.

That one seems never to have existed:

a fictitious fetus, an empty cradle,

a primer opened for no one,

air that laughs, cries and grows,

stairs for a void bounding out to the garden,

no one’s spot in the ranks.



It became flesh right here, on this meadow.

But the meadow’s silent, like a witness who’s been bought.

Sunny. Green. A forest close at hand,

with wood to chew on, drops beneath the bark to drink –

a view served round the clock,

until you go blind. Above, a bird

whose shadow flicked its nourishing wings

across their lips. Jaws dropped,

teeth clattered.



At night a sickle glistened in the sky

and reaped the dark for dreamed-of loaves.

Hands came flying from blackened icons,

each holding an empty chalice.

A man swayed

on a grill of barbed wire.

Some sang, with dirt in their mouths. That lovely song

about war hitting you straight in the heart.

Write how quiet it is.

Yes.”