Dancing after Oswiecim

We’re shown the dust of our graves behind glass.
 Then the pictures of our murderers.
   Death is our common possession, they say,
forgetting that nakedness common
 to the dispossessed. Here death is the property
   of angels; nakedness the property of men.
So we are forced to huddle naked together
 in a small chamber, trampling children beneath us,
   and until we take leave of our senses completely,
our last sense is touch: another naked body
 against ours. So we leave as we have come in,
   unaccommodated, our thousand pairs of shoes,
our suitcases, and our hair on display,
 leave our nakedness as our legacy, the source
   of all our need and our desire on this earth.

A few hours later in Zakopane, we drink in
 the healthful mountain air, and we drink
   the health of the couple dressed to the teeth
who are celebrating their second anniversary.
 In a highland hut, to Tartary tunes, we dance.
   My father rises from his wheelchair to sway
with Grace, his nurse, and the bus driver clicks
 his tongue softly as he lifts me in the steps
   of the polka. I wear a silver skirt that wraps
around us, sandals, and tie back my hair
 in a pink band. We dance with abandon,
   and the bus driver loves me, and we all press
in the light and the heat of the fire. Ah, Zakopane.
 To your cross on Gasprowy Mountain! To your feather
   beds, our common nakedness, the soft clicking all night!