civilization

i sat next to a
   young boy today,
who was so filled with
   tragedy, he could not
stop wailing. he

must have been 7 or
   8, & when his father
called him a “big
   baby,” it injected

even more
   shame & regret into
his shivering
   soul.

torture the air
   ‘til nothing can
breathe; scourge the
   land with sprawl;

rape the water.

we monumentalize
   the memory of the
terrors of the holocaust
   so we will always

remember.

& in the smoldering
   distraction of our
lives, we don’t
   notice––

we never
   forget.