Anthology 2005

BODIES

Charles Reznikoff said they were as naked as Adam and Eve.

Randall Jarrell said they were stacked like sodden wood.

Miklós Radnóti said they were as tight as a string before it snaps.

Peter Huchel said they were like a stone on the palate.

Stephen Spender said they were like rakes with fingernails of rust.

That is how they saw the bodies.

— Courtney Bledsoe

This poem is based on poems, by the authors and in the order cited above, from Hilda Schiff's Holocaust Poetry: "Holocaust" (78-80), "A Camp in the Prussian Forest" (97-98), "Postcards" (47), "Roads" (53), and "Memento" (115).