Westerbork
This comfort was designed by the SS in order to avoid
any problem during the transfers to Auschwitz.
No ovens here, no one cattle-prodded
to eternity; men kick a ball between sheds,
soccer leggings hugging their shins.
Their thick bodies arch with the grace
of minor gods. In the monoxide fuzz
of the snapshot, it's as if the Dutch National
were practicing; barbwire jaws disappear,
guard towers turn to observation decks
for fans, the press. In the old photos
there are crafts, a clean store, even a violinist
for the children. They gathered for suppertime music.
Sixty years later, a space communication center
lumbers next to the old grounds,
tracks and weird power lines etch the land.
The brochure explains that the devices can
produce so sharp an image that a soccer ball
on the moon would just be visible.
They whir and turn slowly, great cow ears
tuned so finely they can hear a cry
six galaxies away.
Jay Surdukowski
Jay Surdukowski is a third year student at the University of Michigan Law School where he served as president of the Law School Student Senate and founded Term of Arts, an annual show of law student artwork. He also raised funds for reviving the law school's literary journal. He is the Managing Editor of the Michigan Journal of International Law and has spent law school summers at the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in The Hague. His work has appeared in Poet Lore, The Iconoclast, Diagram, Bogg, Frogpond, and the New Yinzer.
