Not a Holocaust Poem
Not a Holocaust Poem
Casie Dodd
In the aftermath of the Bomb, doctors
placed powdered corpses in files
created to hold X-Rays.
They were left in piles for family to claim,
reverence one less thing to consider in
the midst of one long desecration.
But there’s something about ashes in envelopes
that makes me less wary of cremation—
a resistance to obliteration, a demand
not to be reduced to one more person lost in
the death waves, but a name on a folder capable
of holding in the energy that manila never could again.
Casie Dodd
Poet & Writer
Casie lives in Arkansas with her husband and two children. Her writing has appeared in This Land, Dappled Things, and others. She is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of St. Thomas Houston. Find her on Twitter @CasieDodd.
Photography by Anne Nygard