Procession

Literary Review, Spring, 2004 by Henia Karmel

Procession

Two marched by
In their striped prison garb
Then two more in rags.
After them came four
On stretchers, comically
Their bodies jerked up
At the night sky.
Half-naked with broken legs.
A frozen cadaver and now
Just beside the prison gate
Came four more stretchers
One pressed a blood-soaked cloth
Across his face
The parade went on
While we watched in dread.
The rag man on the litter was dying.
And at the end, four from a nightmare
Lugged on their heavy shoulders
A bundled body.
They couldn't cope and let it drop.
It screamed in its own blood.

Translated from the Polish
by Fanny Howe and Arie Galles