Living Urn

As the names of the fallen slipped from her mind, 

she remembered it was  a sin to forget,

the only sin left since she didn't follow Kosher,

anymore.

Watch the woman in the Polish shawl,

sitting on a park bench,

watch and whisper with entertained sympathy,

"I heard she was in Auschwitz."

We Americans cannot tear our eyes away from a car crash.

Watch as her thin mouth,

moved into action by some unworldly force,

slowly forms names;

it goes on forever

and she's still in the a's