Stone

“In a visit to Auschwitz,
Bush sets out to repair
ties strained by Iraq War.”
—CNN, June 1, 2003

Perhaps.

Perhaps something

Has happened. Perhaps

The ashes

Descended, ringed

The man and woman posing

For Press, fingers just

Touching

Oven Doors,

Positioning a fresh cut

Rose

On the silenced

Iron.

Perhaps the bone hewn

Stones that sleep (but do not

Sleep) beneath

Those tracks cracked

Under his executive

Walk, the air with a grayed

Unfolding eye finally closed

Down his throat—the fugue

Of 6,000,000

Dead

Fell

Through his lung. 

And if he saw

The words carved

In the night-

shelves: “Ich bin,

Ich bin!”— If

The sky began

To flatten

him.   Later,

In the hotel bed, he takes

Off his shoes, sees

The smooth round bone

Chip wedged in the dark

Sole, prizes it out—

It is there in his palm,

Whispering, What

Have you done? What

Have you

Done?

“Stone” first appeared in In the Arms of Words: Poems for Disaster Relief, 2005 (Foothills Publishing, 2005).