I’ve never seen the people I work for
but maybe it’s a mistake to think
they’re like me. I’ve talked to everyone
moving through this Stalag- prisoners, guards,
locals- and their stories are mostly
the same: Boy finds girl, boy loses girl
to the war and so on. It’s heartbreaking
really, how each story can’t help but let
us down in it’s detailed retelling, how we
define comic and tragic along the barbed
threads of nationality-each history
layered with so many amendments truth
becomes a matter of taking sides. And
then there’s the truth we throw on top of that-
over the dead piled like cords of wood,
a handful of earth and they become earth.
Please, let me forget, let me be forgotten.
Never mind. My orders are to not think
about it, and if I don’t consider
the sound of trains, if I don’t consider the soft
glow of my lampshade, I can still sleep
most nights. Nothing occupies large cool blocks
of my memory, and these days, the only
German in me betrays itself daily
with love for the enemy. It gets so I
can hardly bring myself to goosestep
anymore. Truth be told, what I did before
this isn’t important, and these days,
the barrel of my rifle makes rings
in the dirt that resemble the beginnings
of a tunnel I dare not imagine.
But I guess we all have our own problems-
the prisoners plant gladiolas near
Klink’s office, but they won’t dig their holes deep
enough, they leave the upper roots exposed
and dying. The surface is so shallow
when you think about it, and when you think
about it all the things beneath us tunneling
just short of the surface are blocked, in turns,
by the self, and unfacable truths. And me
standing guard here, nothing but surface.
For every commandant snapping me
back to this reality, a prisoner makes me
fresh apple strudel better than my Oma’s,
and if I don’t ask how they made it from
scratch out of prisoner’s rations, or why
they share it with the enemy, I can
almost forget how much this woolen
uniform makes us tragic together.
Here, Hogan, hold my rifle and guard me.
I think I hear voices coming from the coffee
pot, and if they are speaking to me,
I’ve made a big mistake, but it’s nothing
I’ll remember come morning, nothing but
the feeling of being watched over
by someone who doesn’t quite love you,
but is kind enough to pretend otherwise.