17 Questions the Judges at Nuremberg Forgot to Ask

1. Did a hair
floating in the sink
bring them up short, shaving?

2. Did horror well up
from the clogged drain?

3. Did they fish out nests
of the family’s hair,
matted and drenched,
without a hint of recognition?

4. Did they ever wake sobbing?

5. Did they strop razors
to surgical sharpness
without a qualm,
waiting for the screaming
to die down in the mirror?

6. Did false teeth in a glass
strike sudden terror into them,
those dentists with hammers
tap-tapping among the dead?

7. Did their teeth
ever ache without reason?

8. Did they ever wake sobbing
to the sound of sobbing?

9. Were there ever bones in their soup?

10. Did pepper ever feel like furnace ash?

11. Did the sausages in the pan
ever steal up on them and turn
at the last instant
into the stench of the ovens?

12. Did they get up abruptly
from their meals,
their burgher stomachs
suddenly sour?

13. Did they ever wake sobbing
to the sound of sobbing
and find it their own?

14. Did the windshriek
waiting for the trolley
ever startle them into half-confessions
there in the street
with no one to listen?

15. Did the squeal
of the trolley wheels
on cold rails
make them shrink back, afraid?

16. Or was a job,
after so many years,
just a job?

17. Did they ever wake sobbing
to the sound of sobbing
and find it their own,
and go back to sleep
without ever admitting it
even to themselves?