Suffering: A Game

Let's imagine an ordinary man

untouched by atrocities, indifferent

to the world, which he considers to exist

someplace beyond the roof of his neighbor's house,

the last on the cul-de-sac, beyond

the soapy scent of his wife as she sinks

into bed beside him and companionably

turns away, snoring lightly, her hair loose

over his left arm.  Let's lift

him from her and shove him into line

behind those others, the survivors

of the camps who live long enough

to tell their story before dying of it,

or the ones whose names aren't recorded

anywhere, not even scratched into the bare

dirt with a bald stick, let's set him down

next to the ones he's been separated from

by accident, by history, by things

we can't control.  Let's say he's different

from them you can see he's definitely fatter,

slower and probably stupider and his face,

with no grief to give it character,

is oddly shapeless, though now

you notice he's nervously looking around

for his wife and calling her name,

while all around him the others

press closer, reaching out their hands to him.

This is where the game always ends, because now

he's almost like them;  I can't help feeling sorry

for the poor bastard, and so I let him go.

I let him run across his own yard,

throw the bolt and hurl himself beneath

the covers with his sleeping wife.

She's dreaming something awful she won't

remember, except for the lingering sense

of dread she'll feel on waking.  Let's leave them

alone, they are the spared;  draw the darkening sky

over them, tuck each flickering star

into its enviable, incriminating silence.


By Kim Addonizio