Dead SS Soldier at Canal, Dachau, Germnay

based on a photograph by Lee Miller

He lies there,
he could be sleeping
if he weren’t in water.
His eyes are closed
and he’s waiting.

Just waiting…

When I was in eighth grade,
we had this assignment
and I don’t remember it at all;
I just found the paper I wrote
on an old computer file.
When I opened it,
I read

“The Nazis are very good at punishing us
for something we didn’t do.”

I wasn’t speaking from my perspective,
obviously,
and 8th grade was the year I learned
of US internment camps on the West Coast.
My class was the only one who learned.

Did you know the US kept internment camps?

We publicize the things we’re proud of
and hide everything else underneath the lies
of what imagery  has created.

I look back at the soldier,
this photograph taken over 67 years ago,
and there is horror in his peace.
I thought he was American,
because most photographs I see from
World War II are either American soldiers
or those starved souls liberated in 1945.

I didn’t see the title. 

Author's Note

look at the photograph, click to enlarge it.

Reviews

[koty bell]

that was very moving im going into the us army so this moved me greatly great write