The Shoes.

[dadio]

The shoes were placed
row on row,

large and small,
some with laces,

some without,
black and brown.

If shoes could speak,
if their leather tongues

could pronounce words,
what hard histories

they could tell,
what deep sadness

they could relate,
and there at Auschwitz,

Anny Horowitz’s shoes
lay silent, cast off,

forcefully abandoned,
left to their fate,

no history told,
no biography to relate.