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Poems From Providence - The Poet's Press

Poems From Providence - The Poet's Press

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Gold watch retirement gift —<br />

good man on the assembly line,<br />

speedy with wrench and rivet —<br />

how many cars did he finish?<br />

A mere few thousand, maybe,<br />

nothing to match<br />

the nine hundred thousand<br />

he prodded in<br />

through the one-way door.<br />

He understood efficiency.<br />

<strong>The</strong>ir slouching gait<br />

not fast enough,<br />

he whipped and prodded,<br />

maimed and mowed down<br />

the laggards and lame ones.<br />

(His fat hands picked out<br />

the defective bolts,<br />

dropped them to bin —<br />

never asked where<br />

they went —<br />

Tried for his crimes<br />

he rallies his wife and family,<br />

hires an attorney to fight<br />

this case of mistaken identity.<br />

He smiles at the battered old Jews<br />

who say they remember him,<br />

call him the Beast of Treblinka,<br />

waves to the courtroom audience<br />

and says in Hebrew —<br />

I am innocent.<br />

I am not Ivan the Terrible.<br />

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