The Dead?

Put their bodies
in the grave
where their mothers
and fathers
will care for them.

Tell them
we will
see them later.

If they ask
how much later,
tell them Soon.

John Guzlowski’s poems about his parents’ experiences as slave laborers in Nazi Germany appear in his award-winning memoir Echoes of Tattered Tongues. His most recent books of poems are Mad Monk Ikkyu, True Confessions, and Small Talk: Writing about God and Writing and Me (available at snakenationpress.org). He is also the author of the Hank and Marvin Mysteries and a columnist for the Dziennik Zwiazkowy, the oldest Polish newspaper in America.