Poetry About Genocide

First, language is taught to stop seeing a neighbor. Then doors are marked and families are made into lists. Still, a hidden diary carries one voice through ruin. Witness is the bridge erasure cannot fully burn. We speak each name against the machinery of numbers. Never again must become a practice, not an inscription.

Then doors are marked and families are made into lists. Atrocity begins where human difference is made disposable. Witness is the bridge erasure cannot fully burn. Even genocide keeps more than one meaning in view. Memory has work to do in the present tense.

First, language is taught to stop seeing a neighbor. Time carries the image beyond its first appearance. Still, a hidden diary carries one voice through ruin. We speak each name against the machinery of numbers. Memory has work to do in the present tense. Never again must become a practice, not an inscription.