Lisa Allender Hitler's Hands His hands touched this an unblinking serious blue eye watches me as I peer at this object this thing of death an iron cross tainted by a touch I tremble as I reach for it imagine frightened dark eyes look up from their graves if they got a grave peer out of dark ovens I see white specks on earth too ashen to be snow I hear voices in the specks still speak of dark days darker nights and a world so busy those voices worry it, this world will forget. But I remember 1942 and Bergen-Belsen a young girl’s diary a mapped adolescence a hope for love a wish for peace a few pale pages all that was left of Anne and my youth, too. As for my grandfather, no Jew, but native-american-english his are my roots, he pulled the iron-cross from a dying SS man “we shot his legs off, you shoulda seen what they done- no man should live- a man could do that: women and children, Lisa, in that barn, tried to claw their way out.” I pick up the cross still wrapped in tissue, never touch it I want to know no part of this I have history enough in my head, I have no need for Hitler’s hands.
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