Zerrissenheit

no one comes back,

except in pieces:

shell of the body first,

skeletal approximation

of what used to be.

the heart is next,

occupying only half

its usual space;

the other half remains

somewhere

on the killing fields,

an imperfect memory,

but the eyes, arriving

one

by one,

cannot see

outward:

an unknowable trick

of half-light

has focused them

inward,

unable to loose their grip

on visions which arrived

just moments before.

we return

as shadow,

trying to reconstruct

body, and improbably

soul,

from off- cuts and shards

of an other self.