Prayer to the Holy Louse
By Poetry Issue 90
It was in the spring of 1944, during the delousing of the Gypsy barracks in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp skirts scarves withered in the delousing room all in protective colors in poppies in buttercups in daisies in case of a meadow that wasn’t going to appear a Gypsy in the bathhouse of birkenau stripped of colors…
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By Issue 35
AT the height of the recent sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, a writer friend of mine told me that the whole sorry situation had her in a “white rage.” I knew exactly what she meant: like most people who have lived through these interminable revelations, I have found myself speechless with fury against…
Read MoreFurther Notes on the Martyrs
By Poetry Issue 82
Our speaker has a tongue screw with him, though it is a replica. He speaks of spectacle, witness, dying well. One group’s criminals…. Stories are not preserved by accident. Heroes are made necessary by the nature of memory. Life is stronger than death, and that is why we must praise. I think. Identity depends on…
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