ON A DAY OF REMEMBRANCE
International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 2022
Let’s remember how they thought
they were finally cleaning things up.
Taking care of the rodent problem.
Not strange. The same way
we had the man spray downstairs
when moths had invaded the carpet.
You know how your scalp will itch
when you hear there are lice. Let’s
remember this, inheritance meant
to make our skin crawl at the chance
of a spider, a scorpion, ants.
Older than ancient. Ancestral.
Remembrance? Let it spread across
every checkpoint and wired wall,
to touch all our swatting hands.
—from Poets Respond
January 30, 2022
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Jed Myers: “Another International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and another chance for us to grasp or miss the fact of it being part of our nature to carry out genocides. It’s of dire importance that we remember this is not specific to the Germans or the Jews, but specific to humans. This is the challenge within us. It still waits to be met.” (web)
