the streets are empty today and the garbage full. the sky is gray. it’s always about to rain.
my father brought me a stone from dachau. one of the camps. the death kind not the summer kind. it’s only half a stone:
smooth, white.
i turn it in my fingers. feel its grooves, look at the gashes. what did this stone witness? what does it know about life? about death?
did it see my grandmother’s cousins executed? children and families? was it covered in blood? stepped on by gestapo boots?
where is the other half? my father said you’re supposed to take a broken one. it sits on my desk.
when i’m feeling whole it reminds me that things are broken
when i’m feeling broken it reminds me that there’s another half.
that’s what broken means.
My friend Matt Schroeter created a poster of this poem. check it out:
