Protocols by Randall Jarrell

We went there on the train. They had big barges
         that they towed,
We stood up, there were so many I was squashed.
There was a smoke-stack, then they made me wash.
It was a factory, I think. My mother held me up
And I could see the ship that made the smoke.

When I was tired my mother carried me.
She said, "Don't be afraid." But I was only tired.
Where we went there is no more Odessa.
They had water in a pipe--like rain, but hot;
The water there is deeper than the world

And I was tired and fell in my sleep
And the water drank me. That is what I think.
And I said to my mother, "Now I'm washed and dried,"
My mother hugged me, and it smelled like hay
And that is how you die. And that is how you die.



Notes:

In this poem, a German child tells of his trip to the concentration camp at Birkenau in Odessa, and of how they were put to death in gas chambers which were disguised as shower rooms. The poison gas, phosgene, smells like clover or hay--hence the mention of hay at the end. Notice how this poem restrains from telling the reader how to feel.