Last Train To Auschwitz Contest

Ashes to Ashes Smoke rises in the distance. The boxcar rocks, rocks, rocks; stones are placed along the ties. Were they placed by Chance or left as gently as Kaddish. I lift my hands in the darkness; the light of the knothole lights the tips of my fingers like Shabbat candles, and I cover my eyes. I can smell them, the names put in the furnace. Silence screams out of the smoke stacks as vowels burn away as consonants try to escape the fire, flee up the concrete throat and out into the sky escaping the camp disguised in grey coats of ash, at last, as winter covers the mirrors of the lakes with ice. Contest: Last Train to Auschwitz Sponsor: Kai Michael Neumann