Anthology 2005

Vladek’s Epilogue

A murderer, he calls me, my son.
I killed once a German soldier,
A tree running, I fired upon.

Who survived? The murderer.
I, who was only trying to live on,
All this trying I have since then done.

He calls me murderer, this son
Who knows nothing, who draws pictures
Who says he creates.

He draws nothing but what he does not know.
His mother he thinks I killed,
Her stories all he knows of ashes.

All he thinks he knows he sketches.
He believes on paper only we exist,
My son. I have my pills to count, my pedaling.

Any destruction has already been done.
I am tired now, this murderer. So are we all,
Every one.

— Morgan Richards

This poem was inspired by Spiegelman's Maus.