Asher Blake’s The Last Day


       The Last Day

I repent for going on the march
when you held their heads
in your lap, put soaking cloth
in their mouths, when you laid
your tears upon their closed
eyes, and closed their mouths.
It was finally a kiss
they longed to escape,
to give behind the back
the hidden palm held up,
the firm elbow behind them:
the secret heil Hitler.
All the twirling at the joint,
swastika of the body,
the concentration of a body
of angry refusal like swift
propellers they go.
I repent for going on the march
when you were the nurse
the last day my enemies lived;
that last day they planned for me.
All of them fought each other.
When will the news confirm two friends?

(image by Robert Frank)