NO. 88 LEGIONOW STREET

By P.S. Lynch

‘The home of Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz will soon welcome visitors. The house in Oswiecim, southern Poland, was “a great place to raise children,” said Grazyna Jurczak, 62, a widow who raised two sons there.’                           

New York Times, January 2025

Monday, they opened the

Höss House of Horrors.

Eighty years since, and

Footfalls thread each room in turn,

Capturing silent snaps by iPhone.

Forbidden miseries of hidden Hell.

“Like on the telly.”          Only not.

Birgit’s hand nonchalantly

Wafts at an attic room, flicks

Her fringe then drops. Sighing

“This was the nursery,” she says.

Within, a rocking horse waits.

Riderless nonchalance that

Bears irony on its back,

“Do Not Sit.”

Chintzy eiderdowns spill forlorn

From two tiny bedframes once

warmed by water bottle love and

Daddy’s cuddles. Juxtaposed:

Beyond the pane to

The Edge of a Garden

Over the Wall

At World’s End,

where inaudible murmurs

from sentinel stacks once

smoked selective anosmia.

Now, Monday’s party trundles past

Banalities. Washboard. Dresser.

Potent for android memories cast

In monochrome (“For mood.”)

Shoah’s ectoplasm captive for

Our coffee table TikTokery.

But upstairs elderly fingers tarry.

She lingers, gingerly toying at

a Bakelite door handle, and

Recalls sticky infant palms that

Tugged, yearning for summer.

Her giggles at hopscotch and

mudpie bliss missed the madness

Over the hedge. Flesh blistered

And charred, then flaked.

It tendrilled towards

A blackened son.

#DarkPoetsClub