I dreamed of you
the other night,
and the way
you left a trail
of dead children
all the way from
Auschwitz. Their faces,
pale as albino rats, repeated
endlessly, all with the same
wondering look.
Some followed you, as though you
were the Pied Piper; the rest
lined your road
on either side
like crucifixes along the
Appian Way.
Over your head
hovered, like some dark
halo, a clock, its slow dry
ticking consuming time
as a child chews sweet candy.
The sun set behind you in a blood-red
sky,
and out of the darkness before you
came, with the slow flapping of wings,
an enormous, ragged
raven,
its beak dripping black blood onto the
ground.
It came on and grew and grew until its open mouth

swallowed

you

whole.