In Seventeen Hundred and Forty Nine

A long ago lost relation of mine

Sailed from Germany

Never to return.

Across tormented seas

He launched his spirits

Cast his dreams

To set foot at last

On soil Philadelphia

And in the decades furling hence

His blood traversed

At last to me

A legacy he could not foresee

To be German

In the twentieth century.

I look in horror

Celluloid clips

Detached and yet

Somehow connected

Of mutilations, deaths

Atrocities

Committed by an alien hand

The bony fingers stretched

In accusation

My blood revolts

Impassioned by the faint "Sieg Heils"

Still drumming through the marrow

The cold hard stamp of jack boot feet

The crisp salutes, heels clicking on cement

Jawohl! Jawohl! Jawohl!

Sieg Heil!!

Awakened in the dead of sleep

Sweat dripping from the chin

Fingers clutch the windpipe

Eyes wide in disbelief

Six million lie in unmarked graves

We weep our disremembered tears

And in our righteous seeming fury

Cry what devil hath made you German!

'Twas enough to be a man.