To tell the truth
can mean: being killed
But never – so they say
is the whole truth killed
Only people, naked
faces no longer recognizable
or still in their clothes
as if sleeping, not much blood at all
or only ashes
packed in brown cardboard
or half mouldered
in graves later discovered
But almost intact
the truth grows out of those remains
of what’s left
and lives – they say – anew
It’s just she no longer wears the shoes
of its speaker – someone pulled them off –
and not his shirt either
with its red-brown edged holes
and also not stinking
striped prisoner’s trousers
The truth stands around
naked and a little freezing
Wherever she stands
she never really stands quite there again
Something of her stays dead
with all her dead
–ERICH FRIED