Executioner, Auschwitz

That night, it snowed—
a foot at least.
It fell on the barbed wire,
lending softness to the spikes.

That morning, the weak light
fell on the too-pure white.
I watched them march, the prisoners:
expressionless faces,
red snow in their footprints—
I did not care. Suffering
was not mine, it was theirs.

One by one, women and men
flooded into Block Eleven,
pushed and beaten by guards.
That man—him, with green eyes
and grimy brown hair—he was
my neighbor before they took him.
There were roses in his yard,
shocking red. They smelled the way
a summer day tastes. He loved
those flowers, their velvet petals;
I loved to watch him tend to them
and speak to me—
then, he was not my enemy.

But now, the Black Wall
loomed in front of him,
drowned in scarlet blood
from top to bottom.
I had to thrust him up against it—
his forehead brushed the dark bricks
and his green eyes looked up at mine.

A gun was forced toward me—
heavy metal, silver, the barrel
hunting for his neck.
A weight like my neighbor’s soul
dropped, unsettled, in my hands.

I could not think
when his blood, red as the petals
that littered his garden,
rushed out with his life.

When his innocent breath had ceased,
I still lived in the snow-filled
camp, but that day
I died with him.